India

Indian Cultural Diversity

Indian culture is one of the oldest and unique. In India, there is an amazing cultural diversity throughout the country. The South, North, and Northeast have their own distinct cultures and almost every state has carved its own cultural niche. If compared, there is hardly any culture in the world that is as varied and unique as India’s.

India is a vast country with a variety of geographical features and climatic conditions. India, a place of infinite variety, is fascinating with its ancient and complex culture, dazzling contrasts and breathtaking physical beauty.

Most tourists who come to India are amazed by personally observing the Indian culture. Since India is vastly populated, its perpetual cultural diversity is amazingly spread out. Still one thing that is common in these millions of peoples their love for the culture.

India is the best place in the world to see the different cultures from modern to ancient and find the similarities in these diversified cultures.

Indian Cultural Diversity

Indian Cultural Diversity

The Indian culture has never been rigid and that's why it's surviving with pride in the modern era. It timely imbibes the qualities of various other cultures and comes out as a contemporary and acceptable tradition.On the world stage, either through international film festivals or through beauty pageants, India regularly displays its talent and culture. The flexibility and movement with time has made Indian Culture fashionable and acceptable too.

Languages of India

According to Ethnologue, India is considered to be the home to 398 languages out of which 11 have been reported extinct. 

In India, some 1652 dialects were recorded in a census made in 1961. Another census was initiated way back 2001 and it showed that for more than half a million inhabitants, there are 29 languages being spoken. This is why Indian language translation is a tough one.

Dialects in India vary depending on demographic location. Although the constitution of India stipulates that the main language of the country is Hindi in Devanagari script, languages of native tongues are still very much alive.

Languages of India

UrduPunjabi

Rajasthani Sanskrit

Gujarati

Marathi

Konkani

KannadaTamil

Malayalam

Oriya

Bengali

AssameseManipuri

If all the world’s cultural heritage was contained in a time

capsule, I would like to demonstrate my

country’s legacy in the form of‘FESTIVALS’

India is undoubtedly, a land of festivals. There are festivals for every season, for every legend & myth, every region and every religious place. Some are exclusive to certain communities & religions while others have a national & secular character about them.

Indian festivals are celebrated according to the solar and lunar calendars. Consequently, dates & months may vary accordingly.

Indian Festivals

In India, festivals are marked by a warmth of participation. Color and festivity also provide an occasion for shopping when overnight small markets appear from nowhere. These sell trinkets, local souvenirs and colorful apparels. Dance and music are essential ingredients. Exotic delicacies are a culinary delight.

Regional fairs are also common and festive in India. For example, Pushkar fair is one of the world's largest markets and Sonepur mela is the largest livestock fair in Asia.The numerous and varied festivals that are held throughout the year offer a unique way of seeing Indian culture at its best.

Indian Festivals

The Hindu celebrations of Diwali, Holi, Pongal and Dussehra are the most popular religious holidays in India and therefore are considered public holidays by the government. This means that all children have the day off from school and most employees have the day off from work.Throughout India, there are dozens of festivals and celebrations that take place celebrating different religious and cultural occasions. Although these are not considered to be “national” or “public” holidays by the Indian government, they are nevertheless observed and employees are allowed to take an unpaid day off for the ones in which they honor. 

Indian Festivals

Some of the festivals celebrated in India….

Deepawali or Diwali is certainly the biggest and the brightest of all Hindu festivals. It's the festival of lights (deep = light and avali = a row i.e., a row of lights) that's marked by four days of celebration, which literally illumines the country with its brilliance, and dazzles all with its joy. Each of the four days in the festival of Diwali is separated by a different tradition, but what remains true and constant is the celebration of life, its enjoyment and goodness.

Diwali

DiwaliOf all the festivals celebrated in India, Diwali is by far the most glamorous and important. Enthusiastically enjoyed by people of every religion, its magical and radiant touch creates an atmosphere of joy and festivity.It is a festival of lights symbolizing the victory of righteousness and the lifting of spiritual darkness. It celebrates the victory of good over evil - and the glory of light. This festival commemorates Lord Rama's return to his kingdom Ayodhya after completing his 14-year exile.Homes are decorated, sweets are distributed by everyone and thousands of lamps lit to create a world of fantasy.

Holi

Holi is a joyous celebration of the rejuvenation of nature, and renewed hope of happiness and peaceful coexistence. People throw colored water and powders (gulal and kumkum) at each other and make merry. Singing and dancing add to the gaiety of the occasion. The exuberant display of colors symbolizes the advent of a colorful and prosperous spring season.

HoliHoli is celebrated all over India with color, music, dance and bonfires. It marks the beginning of summer. It also celebrates the end of cold and hardship, and the successful harvest of the winter crop. For Hindus all over the world, Holi also celebrates the victory of good over evil, symbolized in the story of Prahlad, the young boy who overcame evil and tyranny, by his steadfast faith in Vishnu.This festival also dilutes all boundaries of class, creed or gender. After getting their faces painted by myriad colours and splashes of water, it becomes hard to differentiate the class and cast. Hence it also signifies the equality of being human.

Ganesh ChaturthiGanesh Chaturthi is the Hindu festival celebrated on the birthday (rebirth) of Lord Ganesha, the son of Shiva and Parvati.  Ganesha is widely worshipped as the god of wisdom, prosperity and good fortune and traditionally invoked at the beginning of any new venture or at the start of travel.

He is the Lord who is believed to remove all obstacles on the path of the spiritual aspirant, and bestows upon him worldly as well as spiritual success.

Ganesh Chaturthi

He is known to be the Lord of Power and Wisdom. He is the eldest son of Lord Shiva and Goddess Parvati. He has as his vehicle a small mouse. The significance of riding on a mouse is the complete conquest over egoism.

People bring home idols of Lord Ganesha and celebrate the festival by worshiping the Lord in a special way for a day and a half, 5 days, 7 days or 11 days depending on the family tradition and commitment of each individual.On the last day of worship the idol is taken out in a colourful and musical procession to be immersed traditionally at a beach.

EidEid also called Feast of Breaking the Fast, the Sugar Feast, the Sweet Festival is an important religious holiday celebrated by Muslims worldwide that marks the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting.

At the end of Ramadan, Muslims celebrate Eid Al-Fitr. The entire community comes together for special prayers and to congratulate each other. The rest of the day is typically spent visiting friends and family, enjoying time together.

Eid

The holiday celebrates the conclusion of the 29 or 30 days of dawn-to-sunset fasting during the entire month of Ramadan. 

The traditional Eid greeting is Eid Mubarak, and it is frequently followed by a formal embrace. Gifts are frequently given — new clothes are part of the tradition — and it is also common for children to be given small sums of money (Eidi) by their elders. It is common for children to offer salaam to parents and adult relatives.

 It is common for non-Muslims to visit their Muslim friends and neighbors on Eid to convey their good wishes.

Dussehra

The name Dussehra is derived from Sanskrit Dasha-hara literally means removal of ten referring to Lord Rama’s victory over the ten-headed demon king Ravana. The day also marks the victory of Goddess Durga over the demons .The name Vijayadashami is also derived from the Sanskrit words "Vijaya-dashmi" literally meaning the victory on the dashmi (Dashmi being the tenth lunar day of the Hindu calendar month).

Dussehra

It is believed that the celebration of Dussehra started in the 17th century, when the king of Mysore ordered the celebration of the day on a grand scale. Ever since, the day is celebrated with great fervor and energy.

Many people of the Hindu faith observe Dussehra through special prayer meetings and food offerings to the gods at home or in temples throughout India. They also hold outdoor fairs (melas) and large parades with effigies of Ravana (a mythical king of ancient Sri Lanka). The effigies are burnt on bonfires in the evening. Dussehra is the culmination of the Navaratri festival.

Pushkar FairPushkar, the only place which has the sole Brahma temple in the whole world. As per Hindu traditions Brahma is considered to be the Creator of the Earth. He started it from Pushkar therefore it is one of the most sacred towns of India and has a beautiful lake as its prime attraction. Pushkar is also reckoned for its Global Cattle Fair especially the Camels and on papers this is the place which sees the largest conglomeration of cattle worldwide.

Pushkar FairOn record, this fair is World's largest camel fair where Around 50,000 camel are gathered. The entire fair can be segregated under three main heads with a few sub heads. The first is the Cattle Fair. Apart from the camels, animals like horses, cows, sheep and goats are being traded here.

Second comes the Cultural Fair. In this segment the stalls and shops catering both to human and the cattle are set up in the fair site. Clothing, jewelries and tattoos carry an ethnic charm with a typically Rajasthani aura. Besides it, the hugely versatile cultural repertoire of Rajasthan comes alive in Pushkar Fair in form of folk dance, music, puppet shows and so on.

The final day of the fair is for a holy dip in the mythological significant Pushkar Lake.

Vaisakhi

 Vaisakhi is a festival celebrated across the northern Indian subcontinent, especially in the Punjab region by the Sikh nation. For the Sikh community this festival commemorates the establishment of the Khalsa. This is the time when harvest is gathered in and the farmer exults in the fulfillment of his year's hard work.

Vaisakhi

Many fairs in the Punjab are held near the tombs and shrines of spiritual gurus. 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.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. Sweets are distributed, old enmities are forgiven and life is full of joy, merriment and everyone seems to belong.On Baisakhi day, water is drawn from all the sacred rivers of India and poured in to the huge tank surrounding the golden temple.

India today is unfolding a story of a billion plus people, or more precisely, one sixth of the world’s population, on a big move as India's large and complex systems rapidly moving top-down and the country emerge as one of the fastest growing economies of the world. 

India is probable the only country in the world where people belonging to different religions, castes and creeds, speaking different languages, having different cultures, different modes of living, different clothing, different feeding habits, worshiping different gods and deity live together in harmony and believe to be the children of one mother-MOTHER INDIA.

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