The Rains Are Over And India’s Festival Season Has Begun
Across the northern plains the monsoon has mostly withdrawn, the sun has lost its edge and there is a thinness to the air at dawn and again after dusk that was not there just a fortnight ago. Into that changed light falls Vijayadashami, the day that marks the defeat of evil and the day India’s long season of festivals begins in earnest
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| Representational Image Via: Rekha Gupta |
Effigies of Ravana are burnt in the evening. Large crowds gather at maidans across the country to watch the biggest fireworks. In hundreds of smaller towns the burning closes the Ramlila, a cycle of plays about Rama performed over the preceding nights. Villagers build the stages, paint the actors and make the effigies themselves. UNESCO added the Ramlila to its list of the intangible cultural heritage of humanity in 2008.
Kolkata During Durga Puja Hits Different ❤️🪔 https://t.co/7E0JKegncx
— Abhishek (@abhijhunjhunwla) October 19, 2026
In West Bengal the day is called Bijoya Dashomi. Clay images of Durga and her children are carried to a river or a pond in processions with drums and dancing, and immersed. Women mark each other with vermilion, many wear red, and households greet each other with the words Subho Vijaya.
At almost every home the day follows a similar pattern across the country. People wear new clothes. The young touch the feet of their elders. Sweets are taken from house to house and relatives are visited.
In much of southern India the day belongs to Saraswati, the goddess of learning. People clean the tools of their trade, set them out and leave them unused. In Kerala children are taught their first letters. At temples in Thrissur and elsewhere a teacher dips a ring in honey and writes a mantra on a three-year-old’s tongue, then guides the child’s finger through the same words traced in rice. Schools and nurseries admit their youngest pupils on this date.
Dussehra is a time to celebrate the traditions that bring families and communities together, and the values we pass from one generation to the next. To everyone celebrating in Oakville East and across Canada, I wish you a joyful Dussehra filled with peace and prosperity. https://t.co/7V7bzZ9x3M
— Anita Anand (@AnitaAnandMP) October 20, 2026
For farmers the date marks the harvest. Kharif crops including rice, maize, cotton, soybean, pulses and finger millet are ready, and in many places cutting begins on Dussehra. Arrivals at farm markets rise sharply over the following weeks. Maratha armies in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries also began their campaigns on this day, once the rains had stopped and the roads had dried.
Lights have started going up along the market streets, strung between balconies and shopfronts. There will be more of them every week until Diwali, which falls about twenty days after Vijayadashami. In Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh the four days of Chhath follow in the week after Diwali, when families stand in rivers and ponds at sunset and again before dawn to make offerings to the sun. Christmas and the new year come after that, and the lights stay up through all of it.
Raavan was evil But at least he didn't have Monday morning meetings https://t.co/8LMwZH3dST
— Kauशल Gauर (@kaushalgaur_) October 19, 2026
For about ten weeks the weather in most of the country is mild. There are more butterflies in the gardens than there were in August. Evenings are usable again and the calendar is full.