The Year-Wheel
January
Pongal / Makar Sankranti: the great season of the kolam — Tamil thresholds carry their largest rice-flour mathematics all Margazhi month. Harvest songs everywhere, kite skies in Gujarat.
The music season's tail: Chennai's Margazhi kutcheris run into mid-January; Kolkata's Dover Lane conference fills the January nights with Hindustani dawn ragas.
February
Vasant Panchami: Saraswati — veena in hand — is honoured by every student of music; instruments are placed at her feet. Her travels reach even Japan, as Benzaiten.
Dance-at-the-temple festivals: the Khajuraho Dance Festival sets classical dance against the temple walls; Maha Shivaratri (Feb–Mar) brings all-night music — Shiva as Nataraja is the dancers' own god.
March
Holi: the festival with its own musical genre — the Hori thumri — and its own dance country in Braj. Kathak's Krishna repertoire plays in colour.
Ugadi / Gudi Padwa (Mar–Apr): the southern new year — in Karnataka, panchanga-reading, bevu-bella and a season of Kannada devotional song.
April
Bihu: Assam dances its Rongali Bihu with dhol and pepa horns.
Baisakhi: Punjab's harvest releases Bhangra and Giddha; Rama Navami brings Ramkatha traditions and concert seasons in the south.
May
Thrissur Pooram (Apr–May): Kerala's grandest spectacle — elephants, parasols and the massed chenda melam, percussion as architecture.
Buddha Purnima: a moment for the Buddhist highway that carried Indian art across Asia; on the Karnataka coast, the Yakshagana touring season plays its final nights before the monsoon.
June
Ratha Yatra, Puri: Jagannath's chariots roll — the deity whose icon tradition feeds Pattachitra painting and whose temple culture cradled Odissi.
Monsoon ragas: the rains have their own music — Malhar's family of ragas — and the peacock its rasa.
July
Guru Purnima: the festival of the guru–shishya parampara itself — students across every art touch their teachers' feet. The quietest, deepest festival on this page.
Kanwar & Teej seasons begin: women's monsoon festivals with their own song cycles across the north.
August
Janmashtami: Krishna's birth — midnight bhajans, Manipuri Ras Lila, dahi-handi pyramids, and the Krishna repertoire that runs through Kathak and Haveli sangeet.
Onam begins (Aug–Sep): Kerala lays pookalam flower carpets — the kolam's cousin — and dances Thiruvathira.
September
Ganesh Chaturthi: the clay-image makers' great season — murti-craft as public art — with dhol and dollu processions; in Karnataka homes, Gowri-Ganesha.
Season openings: the classical concert circuits stir — check the season calendar.
October
Navaratri – Dussehra: the arts' densest fortnight: Mysuru Dasara's processions and palace concerts, golu doll displays, Gujarat's Garba and Dandiya (sticks in the museum), Bengal's Durga Puja with its UNESCO-listed pandal artistry, and Ramlila — itself on UNESCO's list — played across the north.
Deepavali (Oct–Nov): lamps, rangoli and the year's great homecoming.
November
ಕನ್ನಡ ರಾಜ್ಯೋತ್ಸವ (Nov 1): Karnataka's day — Kuvempu's anthem, flag-yellow-and-red, and the perfect week to walk our Karnataka Kala Yatre.
The Yakshagana season opens: the melas begin their dry-season tirugata — night theatre returns to the coast. Dev Deepawali lights Varanasi's ghats; Guru Nanak Jayanti fills gurdwaras with shabad kirtan.
December
The Margazhi Music Season: Chennai becomes the world's largest classical festival — hundreds of kutcheris across the sabhas, Carnatic music's high tide, dance margams at dawn and dusk.
Tansen Samaroh, Gwalior: Hindustani music honours Tansen at his tomb — and on the Karnataka coast, the melas play all night, every night.