It was a month of melas and more melas as thousands flocked to towns and cities across the North West. Blackburn, Manchester and Preston Mela reviews by ARIF M.

In BLACKBURN over 20,000 attended the mela over the course of two days. Held for the first time at the Town's Witton Park mela goers got the chance to acts including, Raghav, Shezad Roy and Selinder Pardesi.

But it was Hunterz who stole the show with a series of energetic performances. The band were in fine form belting out some of their most popular hits to really get the crowd going.

Whilst the first day of the mela was a bit crap because it rained, things brightened up on the Sunday. So much so that there were blokes with nothing but their Jim Jams on attracting all sorts of attention. We speak of course of the Kabbadi tournament which proved to be really popular and a bit of a change from the usual mela activities.

The atmosphere generated at the park rivalled that of Corporation Park where the mela has made it's name over the past three years.

The new park seemed more suited to the mela although traffic problems outside were a pain for most attendees. There was a wide variety of things on offer at the stalls.

A couple of people spoiled things by getting in a scrap at the front of the mela but security and police were on hand to sort it out. The police handled things really well.

They finally made a compromise and it was two for the price of one in MANCHESTER.

The mela finally returned to Platt Fields Park and with it the atmosphere we have surely missed. In gorgeous sunshine over 40,000 were treated to two days of fashion, music and sport. Over 100 hundred stalls made the days a bit more interesting and whilst the bands could have been a bit better we were too hot to complain. At least it was free and we didn't have to pay that £3 entry fee we did a couple of years back.

The programme of events included a huge fun-fair, cultural performances from locally and internationally renowned artists, guests from Manchester's premier football clubs and even they had Kabaddi.

There was bit of a scrap but it all got sorted.

Thanks Manchester City Council for finally listening and putting on a show. Just one word of advice for mela-goers - Kebabs and hot weather just don't go together.

In stark contrast to some of the earlier summer melas PRESTON was one of three which was greeted with some top weather.

It was real festival of colour at Preston's Avenham Park with everything from fashion shows to kite making on offer for families. Live on stage was Dr Zeus, Silinder Pardesi, Golden Melodies and Chisti Nizami (Qawali group).

The IndepenDANCE dancers were good and should have had more spots.

The families were out in force which a made good change for the melas of late. And being different is what all melas should try to be about because there's so many.

It was a bit quite early on so we decided to go Blackpool for a bit. But later in the evening it got busy and the mela really livened up.

This was the final mela of my mela weekend and I was feeling pretty knackered by 7pm but I decided to make one last effort to pen this story to you on time.