The Golden Age of Bradford Mela

Mela Kulfi FamilyWith around 80 melas taking place in Britain every year, the event has become something of a summer institution in places as far afield as Bradford, Birmingham and Belfast. Melas are in fact a relatively recent phenomenon in Britain although they’ve been held for thousands of years in the Indian subcontinent. The word ‘mela’ comes from the Sanskrit word ‘gathering’ and is used to describe all manner of cultural and religious celebrations. In Britain the term encompasses the earliest bazaars, family days and festivals organised by the South Asian community – celebratory events, usually held outdoors, free of charge, and attracting the entire family.

It was in the summer of 1989 that I attended my first mela in Bradford, then held in Manningham’s Lister Park – and believe me, it was a far cry from the downscaled event in Peel Park that we’re familiar with these days. Bradford Mela originally started life as part the Bradford Festival – a two week multi arts, multicultural, city wide celebration involving music, dance, visual arts, theatre, cabaret, film and poetry. The very first Bradford Mela was held on a football pitch in the Great Horton area of the city, and it proved to be such a success that it had to be relocated to Lister Park the following year to accommodate the crowds. Once in Lister Park, the mela quickly took pride of place as the finale of the Bradford Festival closing weekend, complete with an elaborate firework display, focused on a specially erected stage on the lake. Bradford Mela went on to be feted as one of Europe’s largest multi arts festivals attracting audiences of over 200,000.

25 years on, the mela may no longer be the most eminent event in Bradford’s cultural calendar, yet it is still recognised as one of the most pioneering and ambitious in Britain. Bradford was only the second city in Britain to stage a mela, just a few weeks after Nottingham held its first. What made these events unique is that they were held on neutral ground rather than in a specific community centre or place of worship. It was one of the first times that Bradford’s diverse communities could come together, to celebrate their own culture and to show it off to the mainstream. For someone like me, a British Pakistani female, barely in my twenties, still living at home with a strict curfew to observe, the mela was a breath of fresh air. It was acceptable territory because it was a family event and best of all, it was free so you could come and go throughout the day. I’d make a point of coming earlier in the day with my mum to show her around the market stalls, and then I’d return with friends in the late afternoon to catch the entertainment on the main stages.

Our parents approved of the mela, you see, because it was something familiar to them, so it didn’t pose a cultural threat. The event had a very strong community feel and it was clearly intended for the entire family, and you’d see men, women and children tucking into piping hot plates of samosa chaat in the food area, or cooling down with kulfis near the fairground. And, because the mela was held outdoors, our parents somehow perceived it to be more of an appropriate environment to an indoor venue like a club. The long light summer evenings added a further sense of security, meaning I could stay out a bit longer, to catch the headlining acts that tended to hit the stage at the very end.

The bhangra bands performing on the main stages were, for me, the highlight of those early melas. The rise of Bradford Mela coincided with the golden age of British bhangra music, and these bands dominated melas for a number of years because they were regarded as the first British Asian pop stars. The earliest melas really helped them to broaden their audience since the bulk of their bookings were for universities and Sikh weddings. Needless to say, Bradford Mela offered one of the largest and most diverse audiences, which was a huge draw, even for the biggest and best bhangra bands in the country, as ‘Godfather of Bhangra’, Channi Singh from Alaap explains: “The greatest advantage of the melas was that the multicultural people could see you. By that I mean not only Asians but people who can’t even speak Hindi or Punjabi language who had no idea what bhangra is! The melas really helped to boost our publicity.”

Because the mela was part of Bradford Festival, albeit the grand finale, it still benefitted from the design aesthetic which became the trademark of the Festival’s director, who used his theatre background to devise innovative ways of dressing Lister Park with sculptural pieces and decorative gateways to create a visual experience, as Dusty Rhodes explains: “The visual impact is really important. We’re putting tigers on the gates. We’ve got Lulu the Indian Elephant. What do you expect when you’re bringing people into a party? If you’re talking about a park, you want a visual feast. It wants to look visually exciting. It needs to look like it never looks at other times of the year. We want to lift people’s spirits. We want them to feel that there’s a special moment going on.”

The photographic exhibition ‘Coming of Age’, currently showing at Kala Sangam until mid-August, looks at the golden age of Bradford Mela and explores its importance to Britain’s cultural landscape. As author of the accompanying book, I will be talking about the history and impact of the Bradford Mela on Friday 13th July at 6pm. The talk is free but please reserve a space. I will also be signing copies of the ‘Coming of Age’ book which features vibrant photography by Tim Smith. I’d love to hear your favourite memories of Bradford Mela, or any other melas that you’ve visited in Britain or elsewhere. Please share your memories in the comments area below and I may include your story in my forthcoming talk.

Irna Qureshi blogs about being British, Pakistani, Muslim and female in Bradford, against a backdrop of classic Indian films. Photograph of family eating kulfi ice creams by Tim Smith.

If you liked this post, you may also enjoy Irna’s Beginners Guide to Kebabs.

3 comments

  1. For me the Mela’s true home is Lister Park. All my best Mela memories are of Lister Park – the excitement of seeing the tigers up high above the Park gates, knowing that Mela was coming soon. And of course the Stage on the Lake – how good was that? Watching the artistes performing across the water, the light changing as the sun went down over the lake. And each year a new huge model created for the festival and paraded at the Mela – the elephant, the space ship, the robot etc.
    Good times …

  2. My first date with Ben was Bradford Mela in Lister Park 1992. I lived near Otley at the time. I thought that the Mela was amazing with so much colour and diversity. It made me think that Bradford was a vibrant, exciting place to be. The mix of art, food, music and people was great for the body and soul. I moved to Bradford soon after July 92 and each subsequent Mela and Festival made me proud to live here.

  3. this festival is fascinating, I am doing an university assignment on this festival, comparing it with another festival.
    If people actually have attended the festival, could you please fill in this questionnaire please?
    If you have attended the bradford mela festival please fill in? 🙂 https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/YRD8W83

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