The Baba Sodal fair at Jalandhar, held in September, draws several lakh people. The shrine is to a child, Sodal, of the Chadha Khatri family, who according to the story drowned in a pond after an argument with his mother and appeared to her afterward.
It is a Punjabi Hindu observance with a following that includes Sikhs, and the fair has been held annually for generations.
It is one of a number of Punjabi shrines to children and to people who died in ordinary domestic circumstances rather than in any heroic or religious context, which is a category of local shrine that exists across the region and has never been surveyed.
Jarg mela near Ludhiana, held at a shrine associated with smallpox, and the Chhapar mela at Gugga Pir's mound, belong to the same family of observances.
Their attendance figures rival the state's Sikh gatherings and they appear in almost no account of Punjab's religious life.
The pond is the object of the observance. Offerings are made into the water and the procession goes to it, which puts the fair in the same family as the pond and grove shrines found across the Malwa.
It draws lakhs and is the largest fair in the Doaba. The offerings are made at the pond and the observance is attended by everybody regardless of religion.
It is a city fair rather than a village one, held inside Jalandhar, and it is one of the few large Punjabi melas that has grown rather than shrunk.