Devchar’s hide-and-seek with Gade captivates visitors at Sal

Sal: For someone who has been out on the field for more than six hours, Ladu Parab looks remarkably fresh.
Ladu is among the 33 gade (chosen devotees) who played an active role in the Sal Gade festival this year, and no sooner a family member blows into his ear to bring him back to his normal self, signifying the end of the ritual, then he picks himself up as if nothing had happened.
“I just don’t remember anything,” the 63-year-old told TOI, wiping the sweat off his back. “We remember only coming here. Once you are in a trance, there is no recollection of what’s happening. This has been going on for as long as anyone can remember.”
Gade takes its name from the Konkani word gado which means partner.
For six hours and 21 minutes, the gade, all men, were in a trance on Wednesday night.
Dressed only in a white loin cloth and a black leather belt, they run barefoot through the forests and disappear into hilly terrains, chasing a flame which is understood to be a guiding light shone by the devchar or rakhandaar, a protector spirit.
The surfaces, according to locals, are rough, some patches full of stones and most areas dotted with spiny shrubs. Yet, at the end of the ritual, a hide-and-seek with the devchar who takes three or four of them every night and returns one by one before five in the morning, there are no signs of any scar anywhere.
On each of the three nights, there are no visible injury marks on the gade, despite constant running, barefoot, in pitch darkness.
“Along the route, there is a small rivulet which the gade have to cross (at Tirsoli), but we’ve never seen either their feet or the cloth they wear being wet. Many things that happen here are hard to explain,” said Tulshidas Raut, whose house near the temple has given him a vantage point to view the proceedings for close to five decades.
The most famous unexplained occurrence at Sal, a village in Bicholim, is the burning light. It’s a magnet that draws people from all over Goa, and even neighbouring states such as Maharashtra and Karnataka. If on the first day a minister attended the event, a former member of parliament was expected on the final day.
Those who head to Sal for the gade jatra are captivated by the burning torch — or flicker — which is supposedly shown by the devchar. Sometimes, he lights the torch on top of the tree, then suddenly on the ground.
The crowd can see the light moving from one place to the other, some even push their way as close to just 25 metres. Sometimes one flicker turns into two, and as the gade follow the path to retrieve one of their own who has been held back by the devchar, the crowd goes wild.
“Nobody has ever seen his face. This is what makes this festival unique and attractive,” said Raut.
The origin of this ritual is hard to establish. The Bhumika temple in the village was built in 1609, but how and when this practice came into existence is not really known. It’s a tradition, devotees say, that has been passed on for generations.
The three-night Gade festival is held during Shigmo, considered the most appropriate occasion to express gratitude to ghosts and spirits.
On the day of Holi pournima, a wooden trunk of a mango tree is erected near the temple dedicated to Mahadev, believed to be the god of ghosts.
On the second night of Holi, the gade assemble at the sacred place called ‘mand’ and move around the pole which is erected in the middle. The elders gathered nearby sing folk songs non-stop called ‘naman’. As the villagers invoke blessings of all deities of the village to the beats of dhol and taso, the gade go into a trance.
Then, the hide-and-seek with the devchar begins, drawing and captivating thousands of visitors to this interior village.