Festivals of Chandigarh

The bonfire on the evening before Maghi (Makar Sankranti): families and neighbours gather round a fire, feed it sesame, jaggery sweets and popcorn, and sing. In Chandigarh it burns in courtyards, campuses and institutions rather than at one public venue. The most open function is on the Panjab University campus in Sector 14, with prayers, folk songs and dance; neighbourhood bonfires in the sector parks are joined by invitation. In Mohali, the 'Daughters' Lohri' bonfire honours newborn girls. In the days before, markets sell rewari, gajak (sesame and jaggery sweets) and groundnuts. See Lohri.

The Sikh New Year, the birthday of the Khalsa and Punjab's harvest festival. Gurdwara Nada Sahib in Panchkula is the busiest around the city, with kirtan and langar (the free community meal) through the day, and Gurdwara Amb Sahib in Mohali fills too. Kalagram, the North Zone Cultural Centre's venue, has held a free Vaisakhi Utsav with Punjabi folk music and dance in the evenings, and Haryana Tourism holds a Baisakhi fair at the Pinjore gardens, about 22 km out. The biggest programme is at Takht Sri Kesgarh Sahib in Anandpur Sahib, where the Khalsa was founded in 1699, about 100 km away. See Vaisakhi.

The gurpurab, birthday of Guru Nanak, falls on the full moon of Kartik. In Chandigarh it is a day and a half at neighbourhood scale: on the eve, gurdwara committees take out nagar kirtans (processions) and prabhat pheris (dawn hymn walks), and residents set up langar stalls along the route. After dark Gurdwara Nada Sahib is illuminated. See Guru Nanak Jayanti.

The Mansa Devi Shrine Board holds two Navratri melas (fairs) a year, in Chaitra (spring) and Ashvin (autumn), nine days each; at their peak, hundreds of thousands come a day. The autumn Navratri: 11–19 October 2026 (expected). The Jayanti Devi hill shrine also fills through Navratri. See temples of Chandigarh.

One of the city's oldest civic events, on the national festival calendar: three days over a weekend, held every year in February or March, centred on the Zakir Hussain Rose Garden in Sector 16 (laid out in 1967, about 40 acres). Expect music evenings and stalls among the rose beds. The organisers, in recent years the Municipal Corporation, announce the dates each year, and the venue has varied: one recent edition was held on the ground opposite the Government Museum in Sector 10.

Chandigarh Tourism lists the National Craft Mela of handicrafts and handlooms in the first or second week of October, the Chandigarh Carnival with parades and performances on the last weekend of November, and a Chrysanthemum Show in December.