Holi

Gangaur, in Rajasthan, runs eighteen days from Holi, Gan for Shiva and gaur for Gauri, and ends with clay images of the goddess carried in procession and immersed.

The next, in mid-November. Holi slides around March.

The festival is called Rangwali Holi or Dhulandi , and it does something the rest of the sacred year never quite does.

The colour of Holi , a few weeks ahead, is thrown by people who have just kept the great vigil.

The purnima , the full moon, is broadly auspicious, a night of completion and light, and a great many festivals fall on it: Guru Purnima , Holi , Raksha Bandhan , the Buddha 's birth in the wider tradition.

…uld walk backward through the seasons, Diwali drifting out of autumn, Holi out of spring, the whole year coming loose from the weather it belongs to.

They ride the moon, and so they slide across the Western calendar from year to year, the reader having to consult an almanac to know when Diwali or Holi will fall.