Rajasthan's vibrant local costumes are at their most dazzling during the state's festivals , which accompany cattle markets and celebrate nationwide religious events, local folk heroes and village deities. Most also feature traditional dancing, singing and folk music. Some, such as Jaisalmer's Desert Festival, are geared particularly towards foreign visitors, and many of the most important celebrations fall in the tourist season (the cool months between November and March). For dates of specific events, ask at tourist offices; most festivals fall on days determined by the lunar calendar.

 

Also held during the winter, weddings in Rajasthan tend to be ostentatious, noisy affairs whose most conspicuous feature is the raucous groom's procession, or baraat . Led by out-of-tune bands and lines of urchins carrying mobile strip-lights, dancing male relatives process through the streets, waving wads of rupees ahead of the gold-turbaned bridegroom, seated on a white horse.

Nagaur Fair (Feb). The state's largest livestock market after Pushkar is a week-long fair, attracting thousands of camels, cattle, horses and donkeys and their owners to a lakeside location 135km northeast of Jodhpur. It's a grittier and less colourful mela than Pushkar's (mostly because few women attend), but correspondingly free of tourists.

Desert Festival (Feb). Jaisalmer's own two-day event, when camel races, folk dances and competitions are laid on primarily to attract tourists and promote local handicrafts.

Elephant Festival (March). Parades of caprisoned and brightly painted elephants process through the streets of Jaipur and into the City Palace to the accompaniment of drums and trumpets. The event concludes with an extraordinary "elephants versus mahoots" tug-o-war.

Mewar Festival (March & April). The Ranas of Udaipur celebrate Holi with the lighting of a sacred fire, traditional dance from local tribals and music by the city's famous bagpipe orchestra, followed by a swish society bash in the Shiv Niwas Palace hotel.

Gangaur (April). A festival unique to Rajasthan, when women pray for their husbands, and unmarried girls wish for good ones. Excellent in Jaisalmer, when the local Raja heads the procession amid an entourage of camels, and in Mt Abu, where effigies of Gauri (Parvati) and Isa (Shiva) - the ideal couple - are carried through the streets along with potted rice and flowers which hark back to the days when this was primarily a harvest festival.

Rani Sati Mela (Aug). Vast crowds gather for this day of prayers and dances in Jhunjhunu (northern Shekhawati), in memory of a merchant's widow who committed sati , sacrificing her life on her husband's pyre, in 1595.

Urs Mela (Oct). Tens of thousands of Muslims converge on the Dargah in Ajmer for the subcontinent's largest Islamic festival, commemorating the life of the Sufi saint and teacher Muin-ud-din Chishti, who died here in 1236. For weeks before it, you'll see busloads of pilgrims and pirs (wandering holy men) heading towards the shrine, where worship culminates in performances by India and Pakistan's top qawwali singers.

Diwali (Nov). A five-day festival of lights celebrated across India but of particular importance to the merchant community, especially in Shekhawati, since it marks the start of the financial year and includes a day of praises to Lakshmi, goddess of wealth. Hundreds of delicious sweets are cooked and exchanged by families and friends.

Pushkar Camel Fair (Nov). Rajasthan's largest and most colourful festival attracts an estimated 200,000 people and 50,000 camels, camped in the dunes around the sacred lake at Pushkar, where a holy dip at this time is considered especially auspicious. Still an unmissable spectacle, despite the vastly inflated accommodation prices and tourist deluge.

Chandrabhaga Fair (Nov). The full moon of Kartika is celebrated in Jhalawar at the temples on the banks of the Chandrabhaga, and devotees bathe in the river.