Nagpur (Maharashtra), Sep 17 (ANI): A sea of humanity gathered in Nagpur to celebrate the 150-year-old Kali-Marbat festival where devotees take out a procession of effigies meant to represent evil forces and eventually burn them. Held a day after the bullock festival of ‘Pola’ that started in 1880 in the eastern part of the city, the main intention behind celebrating this festival is to safeguard the city from the attack of vicious evil spirits. Dressed in traditional attire, men carrying clay idols of deities daubed in yellow and black colour chanted ‘Ida, pida gheun jaa ge Marbat’, which means take away social evils and human miseries, after the women-folk finished worshipping the idols. While the ‘kali Marbat’ represents Bhonsla queen Bankabai who surrendered to British power, the ‘pivli Marbat’, which originally symbolized atrocities of the British rulers, today stands for social evils like corruption and epidemics. Though the festival is predominantly organized by the Teli and Koshti, which are traditional oil traders and weavers communities, others too, participate in it with zest and ardour. The marbat festival is being celebrated for more than a century now and with time; the significance of the festival has also changed.
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