Rajasthan · Festivals
The Festivals of Rajasthan
Camel fairs and monsoon swings, boat processions and desert music — the calendar that colours the Land of Kings.
Rajasthan keeps time by its festivals. Time a journey to one and the region opens a second door — the private life of its cities and villages, spilled out in colour, music and devotion. The trick is to be in the right place on the right week, and to see it from the inside rather than the crush.
The most famous of them all — tens of thousands of camels, horses and cattle traded on the dunes beside the sacred Pushkar lake, wrapped in a swirl of music, moustache contests and hot-air balloons. One of the great spectacles of India; we place guests in tented luxury on the edge of the fairground.
The festival of the monsoon and of married women, when Jaipur fills with green and red, swings hang from the trees, and a royal procession of the goddess Parvati moves through the Pink City. Ghevar, the honeycomb sweet, is everywhere.
An eighteen-day festival honouring Gauri (Parvati), and Rajasthan's most graceful — processions of decorated idols, women in their finest, and in Udaipur a boat procession across Lake Pichola at dusk.
Three days in the golden city and the Sam dunes — camel races and polo, folk musicians of the Manganiyar and Langa, turban-tying and the vast quiet of the Thar under a full moon.
Jodhpur's celebration of the music and dance of Marwar, staged against the backdrop of Mehrangarh Fort and the Umaid Bhawan Palace — folk ballads of the region's heroes, by lamplight.
The Pushkar Camel Fair, held on the dunes beside Pushkar's sacred lake each October or November, is Rajasthan's most famous festival — a livestock fair of tens of thousands of camels that has become one of India's great cultural spectacles.
The Pushkar Fair falls in the Hindu month of Kartik, which lands in late October or November each year (the exact dates shift with the lunar calendar). It builds over roughly a week, peaking at the Kartik Purnima full moon.
Yes — we place guests in luxury tented camps at Pushkar, arrange private vantage points and introductions at the processions, and time the whole journey around the festival while keeping the days unhurried and the crowds at arm's length.