Rayagada: The district-level Chaiti festival and Pallishree Mela got off to a colourful start marked by fireworks and a Kalash Yatra at the Gobind Chandra Dev High School ground in this southern Orissa town Saturday.
The festival started with priests performing rituals at the Maa Majhighariani temple, the presiding deity of this southern town.
The rituals were performed at 2pm at the temple to obtain the divine ordain (Agyanmala) of the deity in the presence of district collector Guha Poonam Tapas Kumar, SP K Shiba Subramani and host of senior district officials and political persons.
Later, a grand procession with women carrying pitchers was then taken out from the place to the Jagannath temple where the priests again performed rituals before the Trinity and obtained his divine ordain.
The procession passed through the main thoroughfares of the town and reached near the festival podium at Gobind Chandra Dev High School ground in the town. Hundreds of women standing on both sides of the road welcomed the Kalash Sobhayatra with ululations. Students from various schools, colleges and members of various outfits participated in the procession.
In the procession, various folk dances and folk song groups like Ghoda Nacha, Dhamp, Lanjia Saura, Dongria Kondh, tribal dance, Singamayurchula dance, Conch dance group of Ganjam, Ghumra of Padmapur, puppet dance of Raniguda farm in Rayagada, Manik Goudani dance by Amulya Pradhan and troupe, Dhemsa of Kashipur, Nabadurga Nrutya Mandali of Patapur, Ravan and Durga dance by various troupes were presented.
A torch rally was taken out after the procession reached the podium at the high school ground.
Later, the burning torch was installed on the podium by collector Guha Poonam Tapas Kumar in the presence of SP K Shiba Subramani, Rajya Sabha MP N Bhaskar Rao, and Lok Sabha MP Jhina Hikka. The collector also installed the Chaiti Kalash, the idols of the Trinity and Maa Majhighariani and declared the festival open by lighting the inaugural lamps.
Zilla Parishad chairperson Sujata Mandangi, PD, DRDA Prasant Rath and sub-collector Muralidhar Swain were present at the function. PNN
