Hola Mohalla
Guru Gobind Singh's festival of mock battles, horsemanship and poetry at Anandpur.
Guru Gobind Singh took Holi, the spring festival of colours, and turned it into something new: Hola Mohalla, held at Anandpur from 1701, where his Sikhs held mock battles, displays of arms and horsemanship, and contests of poetry and music. The word hola means a charge or attack.
Today Hola Mohalla at Anandpur Sahib draws hundreds of thousands. The Nihang Singhs, in blue and saffron with towering turbans and steel, ride in procession, perform gatka, ride two horses at once and pick tent pegs at the gallop. Dhadi and kavishri jathas sing, and langar is served in the open fields to everyone who comes.
It is the most spectacular of Sikh festivals and the purest expression of the martial spirit of the Khalsa.
More festivals and fairs
The harvest festival and the birthday of the Khalsa, when Guru Gobind Singh called for five heads in 1699.
The midwinter bonfire, for the longest night, the new bride and the newborn son, and for Dulla Bhatti.
The day Guru Hargobind came home from Gwalior, freeing 52 princes, and Amritsar was lit with lamps.
The women's festival of the monsoon: swings in the trees, giddha, and daughters coming home.
The day after Lohri, when Sikhs remember the Forty Liberated at Muktsar.
The spring festival of yellow clothes and kites over Lahore.
The festival of lamps at the shrine of Shah Hussain in Lahore, once the greatest fair of the Punjab.
Three days of prayer, qawwali and free food at the shrine of Lahore's patron saint.
The ten days of mourning for Imam Hussain, with processions of taziyas and banners through the old cities of the Punjab.
The great Hindu festivals as the Punjab keeps them: Ravana's effigies burning at Dussehra, lamps at Diwali, colour at Holi.
The great fair in honour of Gugga Pir, lord of snakes, in a village of Ludhiana district each September.
A fair of lamps at the shrine of a Sufi pir in Jagraon, still kept by Punjabis of every faith on the Indian side.
The goddess girls make on the wall each autumn, from clay stars and a painted face, and sing to for nine nights.
The autumn day when married women fast from dawn until the moon rises, for their husbands' long lives.
Three days of mourning and remembrance at Fatehgarh Sahib for the youngest sons of Guru Gobind Singh, bricked up alive at Sirhind in 1704.
The oldest festival of classical music in India, held every winter beside the Devi Talab temple in Jalandhar.
The festival of lights, processions and langar for Guru Nanak's birth, when pilgrims from India cross to Nankana Sahib.
Eid prayers at the Badshahi Mosque, sweet vermicelli, new clothes and Eidi for the children.
The day sisters tie a thread on their brothers' wrists, and brothers promise to protect them.
The night the 'Gate of Paradise' at Baba Farid's shrine is opened and pilgrims crowd through it.
Pilgrims of every faith walking with drums and banners to the shrine of Lakhdata Pir at the foot of the Suleiman hills.