To understand India, one might read its constitution or study its religions. But to truly feel India, one must step into its festivals—explosions of drumbeat, incense, turmeric, flower and chant that don’t just mark time, but give it texture. “Festivals are how India negotiates diversity—not by erasing difference, but by rehearsing it,” says sociologist Namrata Gurung. Beyond Diwali, Holi or Eid, India’s inner grammar is revealed in quieter rituals: Angami purification rites during Sekrenyi in Nagaland, Bootha Kola trances in coastal Karnataka, Bendur cattle offerings in Maharashtra, and Tripura’s bamboo-poled Garia Puja. Historians note that such calendars once stitched the subcontinent together: Hindu markets closed for a Muslim Urs, Jain traders sponsored Holi, Hindu Kolis carried tazias, and Ladakhis joined Losar feasts. Percival Spear called this “intimate pluralism”—unity through participation, not sameness.
Today, festivals are also journeys and spectacles. People fly to Naropa in Ladakh, camp at Ziro, or seek Lai Haraoba foods. “Ritual has quietly become recreational,” says sociologist Rohan Chopra. If temple bells once announced festivals, now Instagram and travel vlogs do. Rather than flattening culture, social media has amplified its eccentricity: Baul singers in Shantiniketan, Saka Dawa prayer wheels by blue lakes, teenage girls marching with tubas in Bagru. The digital sphere has become an unexpected patron, documenting, archiving, broadcasting. India’s calendar shows its deepest pluralism: Ganpati passes Eid biryani lanes, Christmas cakes cool beside laddoos, Navratri blends into Dussehra. Identity becomes celebration. Seen from afar, India is a palette that comprises Onam’s yellow, Durga’s red, Ladakh’s indigo, Holi’s neon, Mahavir Jayanti’s white. Each festival a colour; together, a living canvas.
Mountain Masquerade: Raulane, Himachal Pradesh
Raulane remains Kalpa’s sacred secret. Each spring, just as winter loosens and Holi fades, the village calls upon the sauni—meadow fairies believed to have kept residents warm and safe through the long freeze. Raulane in Himachal Pradesh is both farewell and thanks: a send-off for spirits who shared their invisible shelter. Chosen men become the raula (groom) and the raulane (bride), in a ceremony locals insist is “more than 5,000 years old”. Their costumes astonish: veiled faces, layered cloth, beads, and metal, with the bride dazzling in silver that spills across half her body. The groom hides behind scarves. To reveal a human face would invite malevolent forces and break the reverence owed to celestial guests. For Manoj Negi, homestay owner, the festival shapes the year. “My family has been celebrating Raulane for generations… We thank them for having stayed with us through the winter and protected us, and then give them a grand send off.”
Raulane is also an invocation for prosperity. There are elements that tie it to tradition; laugh out loud when the raulane performs, and you invite good luck. Stay silent when the raula demands, and whisper a prayer when everyone does.
- Shikha Tripathi
Harvest Longings: Mopin, Arunachal Pradesh
Felix Anthony, a priest in Arunachal Pradesh, speaks with quiet pride about the region’s cultural rhythm. “Northeast India—and Arunachal Pradesh in particular—is truly a land of festivals,” he says. “With more than a hundred indigenous tribes, almost every month of the year is marked by a celebration.” Among them, he highlights Mopin, celebrated by the Galo tribe in early April as the Galo New Year and the start of the agricultural cycle, rooted in the animistic belief system of Donyi-Polo, and centred on Mopin Ane, the goddess of fertility and abundance.
Men organise rituals, women brew fragrant poka rice beer, and the gesture of Eete—soft rice paste brushed on the face—becomes a sign of purity and affection. Dressed in white, the Galo share Apong in bamboo cups, meals of rice and meat, and dance the Popir. “Festivals like Mopin also serve a social purpose,” Anthony notes. “They create spaces where relationships are formed… often leading to lifelong partnerships.”
- Tanisha Saxena
Seasonal Courtship: Bhagoria, Madhya Pradesh
Across western Madhya Pradesh’s Bhil belt, the Bhagoria festival shows how celebration becomes ecology, economy, and social architecture at once. “Observed in early March across the Bhil heartland, Bhagoria unfolds through a network of weekly haats that temporarily transform ordinary marketplaces into ritual landscapes,” says Dr Dhirendra Pratap Singh of the Madhya Pradesh Tourism Board. Bamboo pavilions, cloth awnings, circular dances, and improvised pathways rise and vanish within days yet braid lasting social worlds. At the festival’s edge, Mahadev Ji’s shrine gathers families with prayers, offerings, and mahua liquor, “sometimes presented as garlands in honour of the deity,” notes Madhukar Sharma of Jeevan Jyoti Health Service.
Bhagoria is also a sanctioned space of courtship. “If a boy offers a betel leaf to a girl and she accepts and consumes it, the families take it as a symbolic agreement toward marriage,” says Sharma.
- Tanisha Saxena
Fury Pacified: Kodungallur Bharani, Kerala
Bhajans and kirtans usually drift through temple courtyards in devotional hush. But at the Sree Kurumba Bhagavathy Temple in Thrissur, Kerala, the Kodungallur Bharani festival crackles with something far more primal. Held in the Malayalam month of Meenam (March-April), it draws thousands who surge through the town in waves of red. At its core is the Bharani pattu—or theripattu—obscene, ribald songs hurled skyward like sonic offerings.
“Though there are numerous legends associated with the temple and its deity, I believe that it was originally shakti aradhana… and fertility worship was part of it,” says Dr C Adarsh. “That’s why many of the songs have references to sexual organs and intercourse.” Myth traces the ritual to Bhadrakali whose fury, after slaying the demon Darika, was finally tempered at Kodungallur—an eruption settling into calm. The festival peaks during ‘Kavu Pookal’, when velichappadus—temple oracles—spill into the temple grounds, dressed in red and brandishing sickles or sticks. As drums thunder, they whirl around the sanctum, smiting themselves with swords while singing from the belly rather than the throat.
For chief priest M Thrivikraman Adikal, the uproar is not sacrilege, but intimacy. “If a child feels hurt by the mother and is upset, they will shout at and abuse her. Similarly, devotees let out their suppressed feelings in front of their mother.” Photographer KR Sunil, who has documented the festival for over two decades, notes its psychological charge: “It is a space without boundaries where they could vent their anger and frustration and leave feeling healed.”
- Priya M Menon
Sacred Spectacle: Naropa, Ladakh
One of Ladakh’s grandest celebrations, Naropa takes place only once every 12 years. Though a modest annual observance exists, nothing matches the duodecennial spectacle aligned with the Tibetan Year of the Monkey, when Hemis monastery draws pilgrims, scholars and wanderers from across the world. At the spiritual seat of the Drukpa lineage, ceremonies unfold against ancient courtyards and painted walls. The festival’s most sacred moment is the unveiling of the six bone relics that Naropa is believed to have received from celestial dakinis upon enlightenment. Amid incense and rising chants, the Gyalwang Drukpa dons the relics—a crown, necklace, earrings, anklet, bangle and seralkha sash—becoming a living conduit of blessings.
Equally striking is the unfurling of a colossal silk thangka of Amitabha, 60 ft of blazing colour revealed only for this occasion. As Thinles Dorjay, a descendant of the Drukpa lineage, puts it: “I first attended the festival as a child with my grandparents…today, I understand its true meaning and the reverence it holds.” Often called the Himalayan Kumbh, Naropa is heralded by solemn processions and shondol dances—a luminous reminder of how faith shapes culture, and how culture, in turn, keeps faith alive.
- Shikha Tripathi
The Homecoming: Karaga, Karnataka
One of Bengaluru’s oldest festivals, the Karaga, is celebrated by the Vahnikula Kshatriyas of the Tigala community in Karnataka—said to descend from Draupadi. According to lore, on her ascent to heaven, Draupadi was seized by the demon Timarasura; she defeated him and promised her warrior sons she would visit them once a year. The Karaga is that homecoming.
“This festival is connected to nature, especially the old lakes of Bengaluru. There is a puja done (Ganga Puje) for nine days at six different places,” says Rajeev Nrupathunga, founder of Revival Heritage Hub. Karaga literally means earthen pot; it becomes the vessel of the goddess—balanced on the priest’s head, crowned with a tower of jasmine and marigold. Dressed as a woman, the priest becomes her embodiment as drums and nadaswaram lead an eight-hour, 12-km procession through the old city.
- Bindu Gopal Rao
Street Secularism: Bada Mangal, Uttar Pradesh
Beyond the spectacle of the Kumbh, Uttar Pradesh’s festival life unfolds in quieter rhythms—street processions, temple fairs, seasonal rites, and neighbourhood feasts. In Lucknow, this is most visible during Bada Mangal. Rishi Khare, a marketing professional, recalls organising a large bhandara in Hazratganj each year: “Growing up in a culture where Bada Mangal is celebrated by everyone, regardless of age, caste, or religion, has been incredibly enriching.” Rooted in a 19th-century Nawabi legend in which Lord Hanuman cured the son of Nawab Muhammad Ali Shah, the festival embodies Lucknow’s Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb—a syncretic ethic of shared participation. Every Tuesday in Jyeshtha, pavements become dining halls, tented streets bloom with colour, and vast bhandaras feed thousands without distinction.
As Lucknow urbanised, Bada Mangal expanded from modest temple rituals to city-wide processions. Researchers describe it as a reaffirmation of Lucknow’s shared civic identity, with participation cutting across religious lines as Muslim, Sikh, and Christian residents join in organising or managing logistics. As Khare notes, the rituals are inseparable from social acts of hospitality and public volunteering that reinforce localised secularism.
- Tanisha Saxena
Embodied Faith: Urs of Baba Naseeb-ud-Din Ghazi, Jammu & Kashmir
Often framed through postcard landscapes, Jammu and Kashmir’s deeper identity resides in its cultural and spiritual life. Beyond familiar festivals are the Urs—the death anniversary of a Sufi saint. One such gathering is the Urs of Baba Naseeb-ud-Din Ghazi. Central to the Urs is Dambeil, a rhythmic ritual understood as a form of remembrance—an embodied zikr. Devotees gather as incense coils upward, drums steady the breath, and slow repetitive movements take hold. “The dance is our way of remembering the saint,” says Ghulam Nabi, a local devotee. “Our elders taught us that Dambeil is not about showing skill. It is about offering your body and breath to faith.”
For generations, the Urs has woven a social fabric, drawing people across caste and community lines into a shared courtyard of devotion. Despite modern pressures and fading oral histories, it endures—kept alive by custodians who treat it not as heritage alone, but as spiritual duty.
- Insha Rashid
Ancestral Inquiry: Disom Sandra, West Bengal
Purulia in West Bengal hosts an ancient and largely undocumented Santhal tradition each Buddha Purnima atop Ajodhya Hill. “On this day,” researcher Subhomoy Roy says, “men from Santhal villages across Bengal—and in earlier times from as far as Bangladesh, Nepal, and Bhutan—undertake long journeys to gather on a plateau atop a hill known as Sutan Tandi.” The centuries-old festival, called Disom Sandra, survives through oral transmission alone. At its heart is the Dong Sering, a long song that evokes Mount Ajodhya. Morning begins with communal hunting in the surrounding forests. Whatever is caught is cooked in huge pots and shared. Without having come to Ajodhya Hill, a Santhal boy is not fully recognised as a Santhal man.
- Tanisha Saxena
Festive Folklore: Gugga Naumi, Punjab
Punjab often feels like a land living in perpetual festivity. Beyond Lohri and Baisakhi, quieter observances shape this rhythm—like Gugga Naumi, dedicated to Gugga Pir (or Gugga Jaharveer), invoked across Punjab, Haryana, and Rajasthan for protection from snakebite.
Historian Sumail Singh Sidhu notes that Gugga, linked to the Chauhan lineage, “is believed to have ruled Dadrewa, in present-day Rajasthan, during the 12th century.” Legend blends his royal birth with Gorakhnath’s yogic influence, recasting him from warrior-king to serpent sovereign who defeated Takshak, king of snakes. In Punjab, his memory gathers crowds at village fairs, especially in Nainakot near Patiala. The rituals remain agrarian and intimate: lassi poured into snake holes, seviyan simmered in milk, offered first and only then shared.
- Tanisha Saxena
Cooling Down: Jur Sital, Bihar
In Bihar, on the first day of the Maithili New Year, Jur Sital is marked by water trickling onto thresholds, elders’ foreheads, grains, utensils, plants, and animals. The two-day festival—Satuan followed by Jur Sital—echoes Chhath Puja’s reverence for earth and water. At dawn on Satuan, a brief puja offered, and a pot of corn, sattu, mixed grains, and money given to Brahmins. Evening brings cooking: kadhi-badi-bhaat anchors the meal, joined by tarua, timan, vegetables, and sesame laddoos. The chulha is scrubbed clean; the food will be served the next day.
On Jur Sital morning, kadhi-badi-bhaat is first offered to the chulha. No stove is lit. The day ends at the family Kuldevi shrine with rice and curd offered to ancestors. Scholars describe the festival as aligning social life with seasonal rhythms. “Jur” suggests settling and “Sital” cooling—of body, land, and relations. Following the rabi harvest, the festival’s domestic quietness—no temple, deity, or public display—has helped it endure.
- Tanisha Saxena
Earthen Rituals: Tusu Parab, West Bengal
In the red-earth districts of western West Bengal, certain festivals still move quietly through the rural year. Barely noticed beyond Purulia, celebrations like Tusu Parab unfold slowly across nearly a month. Marking the end of the agricultural year, it is widely recognised in Purulia, Bankura, and nearby regions as a harvest festival. Cultural scholar Dr Sanjukta Mahato calls it “a ritual pause—a moment when the work of the fields yields to reflection, gratitude, and collective expression.” It begins in late Agrahayan and ends on Poush Sankranti.
At the centre is Tusu—imagined as a young girl or goddess—made from bamboo, straw, rice husk, and flowers. “Crafted not from stone or metal but from materials drawn directly from the agricultural landscape,” notes researcher Subhomoy Roy. She is not formally worshipped but “revered rather than idolised,” soon to return to the land she came from.
After dusk, the festival shifts into Tusu gaan—songs sung by women and girls in courtyards, by ponds, or along village paths. Dr Ranjan Kumar Singh describes these as “oral archives,” carrying emotion and memory for communities whose histories are seldom written. On Poush Sankranti, Tusu is immersed in water. Rice husks scatter, flowers sink, and the festival closes with “the ritual completion of labour and the acceptance of cyclical return.”
- Tanisha Saxena