The festival year
There are far more festivals than any one family observes; which ones matter depends on region, community and faith. Here's the shape of the year.
Roughly when
| Festival | When | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Pongal / Makar Sankranti / Lohri | Mid-January | Harvest and the sun's turn north — Tamil Pongal, Punjabi Lohri, kite-flying in Gujarat |
| Maha Shivaratri | Feb–Mar | Night of Shiva; fasting and vigil |
| Holi | March | Colour, spring, bonfires the night before |
| Ugadi / Gudi Padwa / Baisakhi | Mar–Apr | Regional new years and harvest; Baisakhi also marks the founding of the Khalsa |
| Eid al-Fitr | Moves | End of Ramadan |
| Rath Yatra | Jun–Jul | Puri's chariot festival |
| Raksha Bandhan | Aug | Sisters tie a rakhi on brothers' wrists |
| Janmashtami | Aug–Sep | Krishna's birth; dahi handi in Maharashtra |
| Ganesh Chaturthi | Aug–Sep | Ten days; immense in Maharashtra |
| Onam | Aug–Sep | Kerala's harvest festival; the sadya feast |
| Navratri & Durga Puja | Sep–Oct | Nine nights — garba in Gujarat, Durga Puja in Bengal, Dussehra at the end |
| Diwali | Oct–Nov | The big one: lamps, sweets, new clothes, cleaning, Lakshmi puja |
| Chhath | Nov | Bihar and eastern UP; rigorous fasting and river offerings to the sun |
| Christmas | 25 Dec | Widely celebrated, especially in Kerala, Goa and the Northeast |
Why the dates move
Most Hindu festivals follow a lunisolar calendar — months set by the moon, corrected periodically to stay aligned with the seasons — so they drift within a window of a few weeks each Gregorian year. Islamic festivals follow a purely lunar calendar with no correction, so they move about eleven days earlier annually and travel through all the seasons. Some festivals, like Pongal and Baisakhi, are solar and stay put.
See muhurat & astrology for how auspicious times within a day are calculated, and festive decor for how homes are prepared.
Practice varies by region, community and household — where it genuinely differs, this page says so rather than presenting one version as the rule.
Last updated: 2026-08-11
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