India's festivals and events

India's festival calendar runs year-round, from Makar Sankranti's kite-flying in January to the Pushkar Camel Fair in autumn. Most Hindu festivals fall on lunar or lunisolar dates that shift each year against the Gregorian calendar, so this hub describes the typical season for each and points to the official calendar for exact current-year dates rather than fixing a date that would be wrong most years.

Why we don't print exact festival dates here

Festivals covered on this site

• Holithe festival of colours, usually March
• Diwalithe festival of lights, usually October/November
• Makar Sankrantithe sun's transit into Capricorn, close to a fixed mid-January date
• Maha ShivratriShiva's night, usually February/March
• Ram NavamiRama's birth, usually March/April
• Hanuman JayantiHanuman's birth, usually April
• Pushkar Camel FairRajasthan's desert fair, usually October/November
• Kumbh Melathe mass pilgrimage gathering, occasional, at rotating sites
• Rath Yatra, PuriJagannath's chariot festival, usually June/July
• OnamKerala's harvest festival, usually August/September
• Durga PujaWest Bengal's major festival, usually September/October
• Hemis FestivalLadakh's monastery festival, usually June/July
• Rann UtsavGujarat's White Desert festival season, usually November to February
• Jaipur Literature Festivalusually January

How we plan around a festival

Live, month-by-month planning