Indian families love a good festival, and there's one around almost every corner of the calendar. Whether you've been invited to a friend's home for Diwali, you're playing Holi with your partner's family, or you've joined the crowds at a Ramlila in Delhi, a few words of Hindi will make you a very welcome guest.
This guide walks you through the major festivals celebrated across India - why they're celebrated, how they're celebrated, the words you'll hear, and exactly how to wish someone on the day. After that, you'll find easy phrases for any festival or family gathering: blessings, compliments, photos, food, polite refusals, introductions and goodbyes.
How to wish someone on any festival in Hindi
Here's the best part: one simple pattern works for almost every festival.
[Festival name] + ki hardik shubhkaamnaayein (heartfelt best wishes)
- Diwali ki hardik shubhkaamnaayein!: Happy Diwali!
- Holi ki hardik shubhkaamnaayein!: Happy Holi!
A more casual version is "[Festival] ki bahut-bahut badhaai!" (many congratulations on [Festival]), and in cities, plenty of people simply say "Happy Diwali!" or "Happy Holi!"
Notice one small thing: a festival name ending in "a" often changes to "e" before ki, so Dussehra becomes Dussehre ki shubhkaamnaayein. Hindi does this with many words ending in "a", like kamra (room) becoming kamre mein (in the room).
A few more ways to wish people:
- Tyohaar ki shubhkaamnaayein!: Happy festival! (tyohaar means festival, so this works for any of them)
- Aapko aur aapke parivaar ko [festival] ki hardik shubhkaamnaayein!: Wishing you and your family a happy [festival]! (A warm, complete greeting for elders and the family you're visiting)
Words you'll hear at any festival
- Tyohaar (त्योहार): Festival
- Parivaar (परिवार): Family
- Rishtedaar (रिश्तेदार): Relatives
- Naye kapde (नए कपड़े): New clothes. Wearing new clothes is a big part of almost every festival.
- Rangoli (रंगोली): The colourful patterns drawn with powder in front of homes
- Puja (पूजा): Prayer or worship
- Prasad (प्रसाद): Food offered to God and then shared with everyone
- Mithai (मिठाई): Sweets, which you'll be offered at every single festival
- Vrat (व्रत): A fast, kept on many festival days
Major Indian festivals, explained
Here are the festivals you're most likely to celebrate with Indian friends and family, in the order they come through the year. Customs differ a little from family to family and region to region, but this is what you can expect.
Lohri - 13 January
- Why it's celebrated: Lohri is a Punjabi winter festival that marks the end of the coldest days and celebrates the harvest. It's huge in Delhi, thanks to the city's large Punjabi community.
- How it's celebrated: Families and neighbours gather around a bonfire in the evening, throw peanuts, popcorn, rewri and gajak into the flames, and dance to dhol music. A family's first Lohri after a wedding or a new baby is a big celebration.
- Words to know: Rewri (small sesame and jaggery sweets), Gajak (a brittle sesame sweet), Moongphali (peanuts)
- How to wish someone: Happy Lohri! Or in Punjabi: Lohri di lakh-lakh vadhaiyaan!
Makar Sankranti - January
- Why it's celebrated: Makar Sankranti is a harvest festival that marks the sun's move into Makar (Capricorn). In Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, it's often simply called Khichdi. In Tamil Nadu, the harvest festival is called Pongal, in Gujarat it is called Uttarayan.
- How it's celebrated: Many people take a holy dip in the Ganga, give to charity, and eat and share khichdi along with til ke laddoo (sesame sweets). In many towns and cities, kites fill the sky.
- Words to know: Til (sesame), Gud (jaggery), Patang (kite), Daan (charity)
- How to wish someone: Makar Sankranti ki hardik shubhkaamnaayein!
Basant Panchami - January or February
- Why it's celebrated: Basant Panchami welcomes spring and honours Saraswati, the goddess of learning and music.
- How it's celebrated: People wear yellow, the colour of mustard fields in bloom, cook yellow dishes like kesar rice, and students pray to Saraswati for good studies. Kites are flown in many places too.
- Words to know: Basant (spring), Peela (yellow), Saraswati Puja
- How to wish someone: Basant Panchami ki hardik shubhkaamnaayein!
Maha Shivratri - February or March
- Why it's celebrated: Maha Shivratri is the great night of Lord Shiva.
- How it's celebrated: Many people fast, visit Shiva temples and offer milk, water and bel leaves to the Shiva linga, and some stay awake all night singing bhajans.
- Words to know: Bhole Baba (an affectionate name for Shiva), Upvaas (fasting), Har Har Mahadev (a chant in praise of Shiva)
- How to wish someone: Maha Shivratri ki hardik shubhkaamnaayein!
Holi - March
- Why it's celebrated: Holi celebrates the victory of good over evil, the love of Radha and Krishna, and the arrival of spring.
- How it's celebrated: On the night before, people light a bonfire called Holika Dahan. The next morning, everyone plays with colours - gulaal powder, water balloons and pichkaris - and goes from house to house eating gujiya and drinking thandai. Mathura, Vrindavan and Barsana near Agra have some of the most famous Holi celebrations in India.
- Words to know: Gulaal (coloured powder), Pichkari (water gun), Gujiya (a sweet, fried dumpling), Thandai (a chilled, spiced milk drink which sometimes contains 'bhaang' which is an edible preparation made from the leaves and buds of the female cannabis plant)
- How to wish someone: Holi ki hardik shubhkaamnaayein! And if you colour someone without warning: Bura na mano, Holi hai! (Don't take it the wrong way, it's Holi!)
Chaitra Navratri and Ram Navami - March or April
- Why it's celebrated: Chaitra Navratri is nine days of prayer to the goddess Durga in spring, and it ends with Ram Navami, the birth of Lord Ram.
- How it's celebrated: Many families fast during the nine days. On the eighth or ninth day, they hold a kanya pujan, inviting young girls home, washing their feet and feeding them halwa, puri and chana as a form of the goddess.
- Words to know: Kanya pujan (the honouring of young girls), Halwa-puri (a sweet semolina pudding with fried bread)
- How to wish someone: Ram Navami ki hardik shubhkaamnaayein!
Hariyali Teej - July or August
- Why it's celebrated: Teej celebrates the monsoon and the bond between Shiva and Parvati, and it's especially loved by women.
- How it's celebrated: Women wear green, put on mehendi, sing folk songs and swing on jhoolas (swings) hung from trees. Sweet shops fill up with ghewar, a honeycomb-like sweet made only around this season.
- Words to know: Hariyali (greenery), Jhoola (swing), Ghewar (the seasonal sweet)
- How to wish someone: Teej ki hardik shubhkaamnaayein!
Raksha Bandhan - August
- Why it's celebrated: Raksha Bandhan celebrates the bond between brothers and sisters.
- How it's celebrated: Sisters put a tilak on their brothers' foreheads, tie a rakhi (a decorated thread) on their wrists and feed them a sweet. Brothers promise to protect their sisters and give them a gift or some money. Cousins count too, so expect a lot of rakhis.
- Words to know: Rakhi (the thread), Tilak (the mark on the forehead), Bhai (brother), Behen (sister)
- How to wish someone: Raksha Bandhan ki hardik shubhkaamnaayein! Or just: Happy Rakhi!
Janmashtami - August or September
- Why it's celebrated: Janmashtami celebrates the birth of Lord Krishna.
- How it's celebrated: Many people fast until midnight, the hour Krishna was born, and temples are decorated with jhaankis (tableaux of scenes from his life). At home, families decorate a small cradle for baby Krishna. Mathura, his birthplace, and nearby Vrindavan celebrate in a big way.
- Words to know: Bal Gopal (baby Krishna), Jhaanki (a decorated tableau), Makhan-mishri (butter with sugar crystals, Krishna's favourite)
- How to wish someone: Janmashtami ki hardik shubhkaamnaayein!
Navratri and Dussehra - September or October
- Why it's celebrated: Navratri honours the goddess Durga over nine nights, and Dussehra (also called Vijayadashami) celebrates the victory of good over evil - Lord Ram's victory over Ravan.
- How it's celebrated: Across India, Ramlila plays act out the story of the Ramayana over the nine nights. On Dussehra, huge effigies of Ravan, his brother Kumbhkaran and his son Meghnad are filled with fireworks and burned in open grounds, to the cheers of the crowd. Many families fast during Navratri, eating special vrat food made with kuttu (buckwheat) flour and sabudana.
- Words to know: Ramlila (the play of Ram's story), Ravan dahan (the burning of Ravan), Vrat ka khaana (fasting food)
- How to wish someone: Dussehre ki hardik shubhkaamnaayein! Or: Navratri ki hardik shubhkaamnaayein!
Karva Chauth - October or November
- Why it's celebrated: Karva Chauth is a day when many married women fast for the long life of their husbands.
- How it's celebrated: Women eat sargi, a pre-dawn meal often prepared by the mother-in-law, then fast all day without food or water. In the evening, dressed in their finest, they look at the moon through a sieve, then at their husband, who gives them their first sip of water. Bollywood has made it famous, and in Delhi it's a big occasion.
- Words to know: Sargi (the pre-dawn meal), Chhalni (sieve), Chaand (moon)
- How to wish someone: Karva Chauth ki hardik shubhkaamnaayein!
Diwali - October or November
- Why it's celebrated: Diwali, the festival of lights, celebrates Lord Ram's return to Ayodhya and the victory of light over darkness. In Indian homes, it's celebrated over five days: Dhanteras, Choti Diwali, Diwali itself with the Lakshmi Puja, Govardhan Puja and Bhai Dooj.
- How it's celebrated: On Dhanteras, it's lucky to buy something new, like gold, silver or a new utensil. Homes are cleaned, decorated with diyas (clay lamps), fairy lights and rangoli, and families pray to Lakshmi and Ganesh on Diwali night. Boxes of mithai and dry fruits are exchanged with friends, neighbours and colleagues. On Bhai Dooj, sisters pray for their brothers.
- Words to know: Diya (clay lamp), Patakhe (firecrackers), Lakshmi Puja, Dhanteras
- How to wish someone: Diwali ki hardik shubhkaamnaayein! Or: Shubh Deepavali!
Chhath Puja - October or November
- Why it's celebrated: Chhath Puja, celebrated a few days after Diwali, honours the sun god and is especially important to families from Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh.
- How it's celebrated: Devotees fast for days, then stand in rivers and ponds to offer prayers to the setting sun and, the next morning, the rising sun. In Delhi, the banks of the Yamuna fill with families singing Chhath folk songs, with baskets of fruit and thekua, a crunchy sweet.
- Words to know: Ghat (the steps down to a river), Arghya (the offering to the sun), Thekua (the Chhath sweet)
- How to wish someone: Chhath Puja ki hardik shubhkaamnaayein!
A few more celebrations you might come across
- Republic Day and Independence Day: 26 January brings a grand parade in Delhi, and on 15 August, the sky over Old Delhi and Lucknow fills with kites.
- Hindi Diwas (14 September): The day Hindi was adopted as an official language of India in 1949, marked in schools and offices.
- Ramzan and Eid: In Delhi and Lucknow, the lanes around the old mosques come alive at night during Ramzan. On Eid, families share sevaiyan (sweet vermicelli), and you'll hear "Eid Mubarak" as the greeting.
- Gurpurab: The birth anniversary of Guru Nanak, with gurudwaras lit up and langar served to all.
- Christmas: Celebrated by Christian families across north India, and by everyone in the markets and malls.
Blessings and well-wishes in Hindi
At festivals, elders bless the younger ones, and younger people bend down to touch elders' feet to ask for their blessings. A few lines you'll hear and use:
- Pranaam (प्रणाम): A respectful greeting, said as you bend down to an elder.
- Aashirvaad dijiye (आशीर्वाद दीजिए): Please bless me.
- Jeete raho (जीते रहो): May you live long. A classic blessing from elders.
- Khush raho (खुश रहो): Be happy.
- Dhanyavaad (धन्यवाद): Thank you
How to compliment the occasion in Hindi
- Aap bahut achhi lag rahi hain (आप बहुत अच्छी लग रही हैं): You're looking lovely. A sweet thing to say to an aunty in a new saree. To a man, it's "Aap bahut achhe lag rahe hain".
- Naye kapde bahut sundar hain (नए कपड़े बहुत सुंदर हैं): Your new clothes look great. A safe bet on any festival day.
- Rangoli bahut sundar hai (रंगोली बहुत सुंदर है): The rangoli is beautiful. Whoever drew it will be thrilled.
- Bahut achhe se tyohaar manaaya (बहुत अच्छे से त्योहार मनाया): The festival was celebrated beautifully. A good line for wrapping up a conversation with your hosts.
How to talk about photos and group moments
Every festival and family gathering turns into a round of photos, so a few lines will help you join in.
- Ek photo le lete hain (एक फ़ोटो ले लेते हैं): Let's take a photo
- Sab saath mein khade ho jaiye (सब साथ में खड़े हो जाइए): Everyone stand together
- Smile kijiye! (स्माइल कीजिए!): Smile!
Navigating the food
Food is at the heart of every festival, and your hosts will show their love by feeding you a little more than you planned. These phrases will help you enjoy it with grace.
- Khaana khaaya? (खाना खाया?): Have you eaten? It's less about hunger and more of a friendly check-in, so expect every Uncle and Aunty to ask.
- Mithai bahut achhi bani hai (मिठाई बहुत अच्छी बनी है): The sweets have turned out lovely. The perfect compliment at Diwali or Holi for whoever made them.
- Thoda aur chahiye (थोड़ा और चाहिए): I want a little more
- Bas, bas! (बस, बस!): Enough, enough! Crucial survival vocabulary. You'll often need to say it twice, quickly, with a hand over your plate.
- Bahut swaadisht hai (बहुत स्वादिष्ट है): It's very tasty
Polite refusals: how to say no respectfully
- Nahi, rehne dijiye (नहीं, रहने दीजिए): No, it's alright. A soft, polite refusal that works much better than a flat "nahi".
- Pet bhar gaya (पेट भर गया): I'm full. The only acceptable excuse to stop eating at an Indian festival.
- Thoda dheere boliye (थोड़ा धीरे बोलिए): Please speak a little slowly. Perfect when an excited relative is talking to you in Hindi at lightning speed.
Introducing yourself in Hindi
Festivals bring families and neighbours together, so you'll meet lots of people from your extended family, housing society or neighbourhood that you don't regularly get to see.
- Namaste, mera naam [Name] hai (नमस्ते, मेरा नाम ... है): Hello, my name is [Name]
- Main [City] mein rehta hoon / rehti hoon (मैं ... में रहता हूँ / रहती हूँ): I live in [City] (man / woman). For example: Main London mein rehta hoon.
- Main [Profession] hoon (मैं ... हूँ): I'm a [Profession]. It's perfectly fine to use the English word for your job.
- Haan, yaad hai (हाँ, याद है): Yes, I remember. Use it when an elder asks if you remember them. Even if you don't, simply say yes!
What to say in Hindi when leaving
Leaving a home after a festival can take a while, with many goodbyes along the way, and at least one more box of mithai pressed into your hands.
- Achha, chalta hoon / chalti hoon (अच्छा, चलता हूँ / चलती हूँ): Okay, I'll take my leave (man / woman). Your hosts will almost always reply "Phir aana!" (Come again!)
- Phir milenge (फिर मिलेंगे): Let's meet again
Want to follow the conversation, not just the phrases?
A few phrases will get you through a festival. To really join in the conversations around you, a little structure helps.
If you want to progress from phrases and words to having real conversations in Hindi, a bit of structure makes a big difference. Start with Bhashafy's Complete Hindi Course for Beginners and see how far a little consistency can take you.
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Thank you, or as we say in Hindi - Dhanyavaad!
