Festivals of India in the month of April

Naba Barsha

Naba Barsha is the celebration of Bengali New Year !! Naba Barsha in Bengal marks the first day of Baisakh - the first month of Bengali Calendar. The festival usually falls on the 13th or 14th day of April according to English Calendar Year. Naba Barsha festival is known as Poila Baisakh in Bangladesh and is celebrated as a national holiday.
Joyful and culturally rich people of West Bengal celebrate Naba Barsha by dutifully performing set customs and traditions. To welcome the New Year, people clean and decorate their houses. A very important tradition of Naba Varsha is the making of elaborate rangolis or alpanas in front of the house by womenfolk. Rangolis are prepared with flour and its center is adorned with earthenware pot decorated with auspicious swastika. This pot is filled with holy water and mango leaves to symbolize a prosperous year for the family. On Naba Barsha, people of West Bengal propitiate Goddess Lakshmi - the Hindu mythological Goddess of Wealth to pray for prosperity and well being. Many devotees also take a dip in a nearby river to mark the occasion. 

Halkhata

For Bengalis, Naba Barsha is the beginning of all business activities. Businessmen and traders purchase new accounting books and start new account known as Haalkhata. People also worship Lord Ganesha by chanting mantras.

Naba Barsha celebrations are marked with joy, enthusiasm and hope. Songs, dance, games besides reciting of poems are organized in various parts of the West Bengal to mark the occasion. Enthusiastic people of Bengal also celebrate the eve of Naba Varsha as Chaitra-Sankranti and bid farewell to the past year.
Early in the morning of Naba Barsha, Bengalis take out processions known as Prabhat Pheries. To participate in Prabhat Pheris ladies clad themselves in traditional Bengali sari (white sari with red border) and flowers in hair while men wear dhoti kurta. The day is spent in feasting and participating in cultural activities. People also visit friends and dear ones to wish each other "Shubho Nabo Barsho !!"

Baisakhi Festival

Baisakhi is a seasonal festival with a special accent. It is celebrated all over Punjab on the first of Baisakh. This is the time when harvested crops are gathered in and the farmers exult in the fulfillment of their year's hard work.

On this festival, the farmers join the merry-making with full gusto and do not mind walking for miles to be able to do so. Since this fair is also an expression of prosperity- singing and dancing are its most enchanting features. The Punjab's famous Bhangra and Giddha are inextricably linked with this festival.

Many fairs in the Punjab are held near the tombs and shrines of pirs. These fairs must have originated in a spirit of devotion to those saints and sages. The most famous among such fairs are the Chhapar fair, the Jarag fair, and the Roshni fair of Jagranyan.

Baisakhi marks the beginning of New Year, particularly in the northern part of India. It is among the few Indian festivals that have a fixed date. Baisakhi falls on 13th April every year. In Kerala, Baisakhi is known as "Vishu" and in Tamil Nadu, it is celebrated as "Puthandu".

Considered as a holy day, the devout celebrate the festival of Baisakhi with a dip in the holy rivers just around the break of dawn. It is on this day that Sun enters Aries, the first sign of Zodiac. This signifies ushering of the New Year. In Punjab (the land of Green Revolution) particularly and in the northern belt of India in general, farmers perform their own prayers and rejoice. And on this day, they commence cutting their harvest. The fields can be seen full of nature's bounty. Dressed in their typical folk attire, both men and women, celebrate the day with Bhangra and Gidda, the famous Punjabi dance forms. Sweets are distributed, old enmities are forgiven and life is full of joy, merriment and everyone seems to rejoice.

Baisakhi, however, has had a new dimension added to it by Guru Gobind Singh. For it was on the day of Baisakhi in 1669, that he established the Khalsa Panth and gave a final impetus to the course of the earlier nine Gurus of Sikhism. The holy book of the Sikhs, 'Granth Sahib' is taken in a procession, led by the 'Panj Pyaras' (five senior Sikhs) who are symbolic of the original leaders. The occasion is celebrated with great enthusiasm at Talwandi Sabo, where Guru Gobind Singh stayed for nine months and completed the recompilation of the Guru Granth Sahib in the Golden temple in Amritsar. On the day of Baisakhi, water from all the sacred rivers of India is collected and then poured in to the huge tank surrounding the golden temple.

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