JHAPAN FESTIVAL
Jhapan a special Serpent festival is observed near Bankura.
Jhapan which literally means a stage erected to exhibit tricks with snakes. The festival is held on the last day of the Bengali month of Srabana (August – September) when the annual serpent worship is held throughout the whole of Bengal. Though the influence of urban culture is fast rendering it obsolete, it was a very common sight during the last century. Jhapan, in practice, is the annual conference of snake – charmers of a particular area who assemble at a place on this occasion and demonstrate various tricks and feats with live snakes, claimed to be venomous, as they proceed with music along the public road. Sometimes the disciples of a preceptor would carry him aloft on their shoulder on a platform on which the preceptor exhibits various tricks with live snakes. Sometimes a bullock – cart is used as the mobile platform for this purpose. Eager crowds on either side of the road witness the performance with a mixed feeling of horror and delight. Fatal cases of snakebite occasionally occur among the participants when snakes with their poison – fangs unextracted are on display. Due to such fatal consequences, the practices has long been abandoned in many places with little prospect of its revival. The practice is confined among the Kaivartas (fishermen castes in particular though, as a rule, every exorcist, to whatever caste he may belong, is allowed to participate in it).
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