Not the Dussehra You Think You Know
Bastar Dussehra shares a name with the north Indian festival and almost nothing else. Ravana does not burn here. The central figure is Danteshwari, the presiding deity of the Bastar kingdom, and the festival is a state occasion of the former Bastar royal house conducted across the forested plateau of Chhattisgarh, beginning in the lunar month of Shravan, roughly July or August, and closing seventy-five days later, usually in October. No other Dussehra in the country runs this long. The Guinness World Records has recognised it as the world's longest festival of its kind.
