According to the Vikrami calendar, the new year begins in the month of Chaitra. The first day of this month (Chaitra Sankranti) is therefore considered very important and is celebrated all over the state. Barring the tribal areas the people belonging to the Harijan caste (Dom) go from door to door in the village and sing the names of the month and other songs known as Dhoru. It is considered auspicious to hear them utter the names of the months in the year. Two colourful festivals are celebrated during this month.

One is Navratri and the other is Ralli Pooja. In some corner of the house which faces east a plant is covered with soil and sown with barley seeds, coconut, symbolizing the goddess Bhagwati is also placed near it. For nine days the ritual 'pooja' is performed there and on the tenth day (Dashami) the barley shoots are distributed all over the village. These shoots are known as Riholi and they are said to symbolic the goddess Durga Bhagwati. Durga is the chief deity in the area, and is supposed to protect the people from illness and mental sorrows. People go on pilgrimage to temples of the goddess and cook special delicacies. Among the higher castes special prayers to the goddess (Durga-Path) are recited.

Ralli Pooja is another colourful festival. In this, the young unmarried girls in the village make little statues of the lord Shiva and his wife Parvati and place these on a plank and offer prayers to it throughout the month of Chaitra. The entire ritual is strange and beautiful. All the young unmarried girls first collect early in the morning in the house where Ralli is going to be worshipped and afterwards they go to the local lake singing songs. There they bathe and fill small metal pots with water and come home and bathe the deities with this and offer them flowers. At the end of the month a ritual wedding between Ralli and Lord Shiva is enacted. On the Baisakhi day Ralli is brought out ceremoniously in a palanquin and taken to a river bank. There she is immersed in the eaters and as it is being done the girls cry and weep as though one of them is leaving for the husband's house. On the day of the wedding, people are invited for Bhat as is done in weddings, and the girls pray to the goddess to bless them with a husband as good as her won.