INDIAN FESTIVALS IN: Jan | Feb | March | April | May | June | July | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec

Colorful and lively, THE FAIRS AND FESTIVALS OF INDIA are major attractions of the country. Indian festivals speak of India's rich cultural and traditional background.

1. Hemis Festival - Hemis, Ladakh: The courtyard of Hemis Gompa-the biggest Buddhist monastery in Ladakh is the stage for the famous 'Hemis' festival that celebrates the birth anniversary of Guru Padmasambhava. The colourful two-day pageant falls on the 10th day (Tse-Chu) of the Tibetan lunar month. The local people are seen dressed up in their finest traditional garb for the occasion. Lamas called 'chhams' perform splendid masked dances and sacred plays to the accompaniment of cymbals, drums and long horns. The head lama presides over the function. The festival takes an auspicious turn every 12 years in the Tibetan Year of the Monkey, when the two-storey high 'Thanka' depicting Padmasambhava is displayed. This famous 'Thanka', richly embroidered with pearls and semi-precious stones, is due to be displayed at this year’s festival i.e. in 2004. A colourful fair, displaying some beautiful handicrafts, is the special highlight of the festival.

2. Sindhu Darshan Festival - Leh, Ladakh: The Sindhu Darshan Festival, as the name suggests, is a celebration of River Sindhu, also known as the Indus. Last year, the Festival was organized from 6-8 June 2000 at Shey livened up by the presence of a wide variety of cultural troupes from various corners of India. Troupes from States where the mighty Rivers of India run, brought with them water from those rivers in earthen pots and immersed the pots in the Indus, thereby mingling the waters from all over India with that of the mighty 'Indus', the river that gave India its name.






3. Champakulam Boat Race - Alleppey, Kerala:  Visit Alappuzha in the Malayalam month of Midhunam (June-July) and you can be a part of the world famous Champakulam Boat Race, which celebrates the arrival of Lord Krishna idol at the Ambalaphuza temple. What a colourful merriment does it portray! Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was once invited for a boat ride from Kottayam to Alleppey. En route, Nehru saw a boat race on Alleppey's Punnamada Lake and got so enthralled that he jumped into the boat that won the race. Eventually, the Punnamada Boat Race became world famous as the Nehru Trophy Boat Race, which is held still today on the second week of August every year. The trophy is a replica of a snake-boat in silver, placed on wooden pedestal on which the following words of Panditji are engraved above his signature.

 

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