Flower carpets and feasts, elephants and drums, fire-lit shrines and racing snake boats — Kerala marks the year with some of India's most spectacular festivals. Here's what to catch, and when.
Kerala's biggest festival and harvest celebration, welcoming the mythical king Mahabali. Homes lay intricate flower carpets (pookalam), families share the grand vegetarian Onasadya on a banana leaf, and the backwaters host snake-boat races.
The Malayali astronomical new year. Families wake to the Vishukkani — an auspicious arrangement of fruit, gold, grain and a mirror, viewed first thing for a prosperous year — followed by fireworks and the giving of Vishukkaineetam.
The grandest of Kerala's temple festivals, staged around the Vadakkunnathan temple. Rows of caparisoned elephants, the dazzling Kudamattam parasol exchange and massed chenda percussion build to a famous night of fireworks.
Through the cooler months, hundreds of village shrines across Kannur and Kasaragod host Theyyam, where a costumed performer becomes a living deity and blesses the community in an electrifying all-night ritual.
At the Attukal Bhagavathy temple, hundreds of thousands of women cook pongala (a sweet rice offering) over open hearths that fill the capital's streets — one of the largest gatherings of women anywhere in the world.
The most famous of the backwater regattas, held on the second Saturday of August. Towering chundan vallam snake boats, each rowed by around a hundred oarsmen, surge down Punnamada Lake to drums and vanchipattu boat songs.
Fort Kochi rings in the New Year with a week of parades, cycle and bike races, music, games and beach festivities, ending with the midnight burning of 'Pappanji' — a giant effigy of the old year.
Dates shift each year with the Malayalam calendar — check locally before you travel. Planning around a festival? See the best time to visit.
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