INDIA RICH CULTURE AND HERITAGE

Ganesh Festival Dinodia Photo/Getty Images Celebrate Ganesh Chaturthi with Devotion Ganesh Chaturthi is a 10-day festival honoring the  elephant-headed god  of wisdom and prosperity, Lord Ganesha. The festival celebrates Ganesha as the God of New Beginnings and the Remover of Obstacles as well as the god of wisdom and intelligence [8] [9]  and is observed throughout India, especially in the states such as  Tamil Nadu ,  Maharashtra ,  Karnataka ,  Kerala ,  Andhra Pradesh  and  Goa . [3] [10]  Ganesh Chaturthi is also observed in  Nepal  and by the Hindu diaspora elsewhere such as in  Australia ,  New Zealand ,  Canada ,  Singapore ,  Malaysia ,  Trinidad and Tobago ,  Guyana ,  Suriname , other parts of the  Caribbean ,  Fiji ,  Mauritius ,  South Africa , [11]  the  United States , and  Europe . In the Gregorian calendar, Ganesh Chaturthi falls b...

HOLI    Holi ,   Hindu   spring   festival   celebrated throughout North India on the full-moon day of Phalguna (February–March). Participants throw coloured water and powders on one another, and, on this one day only, license is given for the usual rankings of   caste ,   gender ,   status , and age to be reversed. In the streets the celebrations are often marked by ribald language and behaviour, but at its   conclusion , when everyone bathes, dons clean white clothes, and visits friends, teachers, and relatives, the ordered patterns of society are reasserted and renewed. Holi Holi is particularly enjoyed by worshippers of the god  Krishna . Its general frivolity is considered to be in imitation of Krishna’s play with the  gopi s (wives and daughters of cowherds). In Vraja (modern Gokul), rituals of reversal culminate in a battle in which the women of the natal village of  Radha , Krishna’s eternally devoted lover, pummel...