Baba Balak Nath Temple, Deotsidh

01The boy siddha

Baba Balak Nath is worshipped as a siddha who stays ever a child, and many devotees hold him to be an amsha of Bhagwan Kartikeya. The katha told in the hills says he came to Shahtalai and grazed the cows of a woman named Mai Ratno for twelve years, eating only the roti and lassi she brought him; when the villagers complained that the cows had ruined the fields, he showed the crops whole and returned all the roti untouched. He then sat in tapas in the cave on the Deotsidh hill. The cave holds his murti, and a hollow in the rock is shown as his seat.

02Rot and the Chaitra mela

The great mela runs through the month of Chaitra, from mid-March to mid-April, when the hill is packed with pilgrims from Punjab and Himachal; Sundays are busy all year. Rot of wheat flour, jaggery and ghee is the offering. By old custom women do not enter the cave; they take darshan from a raised platform facing it.