Navaratri
11 October 2026 · movable holiday — Nine nights of light and dance – happy Navaratri!
Navaratri (Sanskrit for “nine nights”) is a Hindu festival honouring the divine mother Durga and her forms. The best-known is the autumn Sharad Navaratri, held in the month of Ashvin, usually in September or October. It begins on the first day of the waxing moon, just after the new moon, and lasts nine nights, followed by Vijayadashami (Dussehra). Dates follow the Hindu lunisolar calendar, so they shift each year against the Gregorian calendar. Many people fast, pray and decorate home shrines. In Gujarat, thousands gather in the evenings to dance garba, a circle dance around a lamp or an image of the Goddess, and dandiya with decorated sticks. The circular dance symbolises the cycle of time and life. Garba of Gujarat was inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2023. The festival carries the hope that good prevails.
Flying across the sky: An ethereal, bluish-silver star figure made of luminous dots and lines, like a constellation, gracefully dancing garba in a swirling skirt of tiny glittering points while twirling two slender dandiya sticks
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