A mela is the fair — the village's great social occasion, mixing shrine and spectacle: swings, sweet stalls, wrestling bouts and crowds from villages around.
Meaning
ਮੇਲਾ (mela) is the fair — the gathering where a village, and villages around it, come together for a day or days of buying, worship, games and spectacle. Every mela mixes the sacred and the merry: the shrine or the saint’s anniversary at its heart, and around it the swings, the sweet stalls, the wrestling bouts and the crowds.
Origin and etymology
The word comes from Sanskrit ਮੇਲ (mela), a meeting or union — from the root meaning “to meet.” A mela is, at bottom, simply people coming together.
Cultural context
The mela is the village’s great social occasion. Religious melas mark saints’ days and festivals — Hola Mohalla at Anandpur Sahib, the great Sikh gathering, is the most famous; countless small shrines hold their own annual melas. But there are cattle fairs, harvest melas and plain pleasure fairs too: the Ferris wheel turning against the evening sky, children with balloons, elders meeting friends from three villages away.
For the young it was once the year’s big outing; for traders, the year’s big market. The mela is where rural Punjab shows itself at its most colourful and most communal.
ਪੰਜਾਬੀ ਵਿੱਚ ਅਰਥ
ਮੇਲਾ ਪਿੰਡ ਦਾ ਸਭ ਤੋਂ ਵੱਡਾ ਇਕੱਠ ਹੁੰਦਾ ਹੈ। ਧਾਰਮਿਕ ਮੇਲੇ ਕਿਸੇ ਸੰਤ ਜਾਂ ਤਿਉਹਾਰ ਦੀ ਯਾਦ ਵਿੱਚ ਲੱਗਦੇ ਹਨ।
ਮੇਲੇ ਵਿੱਚ ਝੂਲੇ, ਮਿਠਾਈਆਂ ਦੀਆਂ ਦੁਕਾਨਾਂ, ਖਿਡੌਣੇ ਅਤੇ ਕੁਸ਼ਤੀਆਂ ਹੁੰਦੀਆਂ ਹਨ। ਦੂਰ-ਦੂਰ ਦੇ ਪਿੰਡਾਂ ਤੋਂ ਲੋਕ ਆਉਂਦੇ ਹਨ।
ਬੱਚਿਆਂ ਲਈ ਮੇਲਾ ਸਾਲ ਦਾ ਸਭ ਤੋਂ ਵੱਡਾ ਮਜ਼ਾ ਹੁੰਦਾ ਸੀ — ਗੁਬਾਰੇ, ਖਿਡੌਣੇ ਅਤੇ ਝੂਲੇ।
How it's used
- 1ਪਿੰਡ ਵਿੱਚ ਸਾਲਾਨਾ ਮੇਲਾ ਲੱਗਿਆ ਹੈ।The annual fair is on in the village.
- 2ਮੇਲੇ ਵਿੱਚ ਬਹੁਤ ਭੀੜ ਸੀ।There was a huge crowd at the fair.
- 3ਅਸੀਂ ਮੇਲੇ ਵਿੱਚ ਝੂਲੇ ਲਏ।We rode the swings at the fair.