Rampur’s Lavi Fair: Storytelling through 300 years of Himalayan trade and tradition

What Disneyland is to children today, Lavi Fair in Rampur Bushahr, in Himachal Pradesh’s Shimla district, was to my family in the 1980s. I recall wandering through the fair as an eight-year-old, watching an old man smoking a chillum beside heaps of black sheep fleece and stacks of white woollen pattus (traditional garments of Kinnaur and Kullu women). Mother and her friends carefully chose shawls for their daughters’ and future daughters-in-law’s trousseaux.

Years later, I received a beautiful black sheep wool and pashmina shawl for my wedding. Wool finds pride of place at the fair. The name Lavi is linked to “Loe”, a sheet of woollen cloth and the practice of shearing sheep.

For a few weeks, Rampur, on the banks of the Sutlej river, comes alive with the fair (November 11-14 this year, with trading grounds open through the month), offering a sensory map of the Himalaya. Colourful textiles, yak wool, pashmina, dry fruits, agricultural produce, Kinnauri apples, indigenous crafts and precious stones fill the marketplace.