Holika Dahan India

Holika Dahan is also the Kamudu pyre is the celebrated by burning the Holika, the devil. Foe many traditions in the Hinduism, Holi celebrate the death of the Holika in order to save the Prahlad and thus Holi gets its name.  In older days, people used to contribute the piece of the wood or two for the Holika bonfire.

The night before the Holi pyres are burnt in the North India, Nepal and the other parts of the South India in keeping with this tradition. The youth play steals all sorts of the things and put them in the Holika pyre. People lights up the bonfires on the eve of Holi festival to celebrate the victory of ‘good’ over the ‘bad’ which is known as Holika Dahan,In some parts of India, the day is called as the Holika.

History of Holika and Prahlad 

According to Hindu myth, there was the king named Hiranyakashipu, who is like a demons or Asuras had the intense desire to be immortal. Just to fulfil this desire he performed the required penance (Tapas) until he was given a boon by Brahma. Although God’s do not usually grant the boon of immortality, he used his cunningness to get the boon which he thought that will make him immortal. The boon gave the Hiranyakashyapu five special powers that he couldn’t be killed by neither the human beings nor animal, neither indoor nor outdoors, neither at the day nor at the night, neither by any weapons that are launched means by Astra nor by weapons that are hand held means Shastra and neither on the land nor in the water or air. As his wish was granted, Hiranyakashyapu felt that he was invincible, which made him arrogant. He even decreed that he is worshipped as God, if anyone didn’t accept his orders he or she will be punished or can be killed. His own son Prahlad was disagreed with his father and refused to worship his father as god. Prahlad continue believing and worshipping Lord Vishnu.

This thing made Hiranyakashipu angry and he made various attempts to kill Prahlad. During his attempt on his son’s life, he called upon his sister Holika for the help. Holika had the special cloak garment that prevented her from being harm her by fire. He asked him to sit on bonfire with Prahlad by tricking Prahlad to sit on her lap. However, as the fired roared the garment which Holika was wearing flew from her and covered Prahlad. Holika burnt to death and Prahlad came out unharmed.
Vishnu appeared in form of Narasimha- half human and a half lion, at the dusk when it was neither the day nor the night yet, and took the Hiranyakashyapu at a doorstep which was neither indoor nor outdoor, placed him on his lap which was neither a land, air, or water and then used lion claws to fight Hiranyakashyapu which was neither the Astra nor Shastra. In this way, the boon of five special powers granted to Hiranyakashyapu was not longer usefull and he was killed. Thus, Prahlad and the kingdom of human beings were free from the fear of Hiranyakashyapu.
This signifies the victory of good over evil.

Resources:

http://www.eternalmewar.in

Ultra Music Festival, Miami, Florida

Ultra Music Festival is an annual outdoor electronic music festival that occurs in the month of March in the city of the Miami, Florida, United States. The festival coincides with the annual Music Conference and also held in the Miami.

Ultra is held Downtown Miami in the Bay front Park. It was the one-day festival from the 1999 to 2006, the 2 days festival from the 2007- 2010 and was the 3-days festival in the 2011 and 2012. In 2013 the festival, UMF took place across 2 consecutive weekends, this was the first time in the festival history. In the 2014, the festival again returned to the one-day format.
The other Ultra festival are held in the Spain, Buenos Aires, Argentina, São Paulo, Cape Town, Brazil, Chile, Santiago, Seoul, South Korea, Ibiza, Santiago and Johannesburg, South Africa, Spilt, Croatia and Hvar, Crotia. In the December, 2013 Ultra Worldwide announced to the first edition of the festival in the Bogota, Colombia.

 Although they share the names, UMF was not directly tied to the Ultra Records, an electronic music record label. However, the two entities did announce the "global alliance" in August 2012, which would allow them to collaborate on the marketing and cross-promotion.

Music Festival was founded in the 1999 by the business partners Russell Faibisch and the Alex Omes and the Bruce Braxton. The first festival was held as 1 day event at the end of the Winter Music Conference in the 1999 with the performance by the Rabbit in the Moon and the DJ Baby Anne. The event was held in the South Beach in the Miami Beach, Florida and was major success.
It is very intense electronic music festival for the partiers out there. It has the broad range of the percussive electronic music genres produced primarily for the dance based entertainment environments such as the nightclubs, raves and festival. The music is largely produced for the playback by the disc jockeys (DJs).

Saint Patrick’s Day Festival

Saint Patrick’s Day or the Feast of the Saint Patrick (“the Day of the festival of the Patrick”). It is the cultural and the religious celebration, the death date of the most commonly recognised patron saint of the Ireland, Saint Patrick (c. AD 385-461).

Saint Patrick’s Day was made an official Christian feast day in the early seventeenth century and it is observed by the Catholic Church, the Anglican Communion especially the church of the Ireland, the Eastern Orthodox Church and Lutheran Church. The day commemorates Saint Patrick and the arrival of the Christianity in the Ireland as well as celebrating the heritage and the culture of the Irish in the general.  Its celebration generally involves the public parades and the festival, céilithe and the wearing of the green attire or the shamrocks. At this day Christians also attends the church services and the Lenten restrictions on eating and the drinking alcohol are lifted for the day, which has encouraged and propagated the holiday’s tradition of the alcohol consumption.

Saint Patrick’s Day is the public holiday in the Republic of the Ireland, Northern Ireland, Newfoundland and the Labrador and Montserrat. It is also widely celebrated by the Irish diaspora around the world, especially in the Great Britain, Canada, the United States, Argentina, Australia and the New Zealand.

Saint Patrick: Much of what is known about the St. Patrick comes from the Declaration, which was the allegedly written by Patrick himself. It is believed that he was born in the Roman Britain in the fourth century into the wealthy Romano-British family. His father was the deacon and his grandfather was the priest in the Christian church.

On the St. Patrick’s Day it is customary to wear the shamrocks or the green clothing or the accessories. The St Patrick is said to have used the shamrock, the three-leaved plant, to explain the Holy Trinity to the Pagan Irish. The wearing of the 'St Patrick's Day Cross', especially in the World War I era, by the Irish, was also a popular custom. These St Patrick's Day Crosses have a Celtic Christian cross made of paper that is "covered with silk or ribbon of different colours, and a bunch or rosette of green silk in the centre."

The colour green has been associated with Ireland since at least the 1640s, when the green harp flag was used by the Irish Catholic Confederation. Green ribbons and shamrocks have been worn on St Patrick's Day since at least the 1680s.Green was adopted as the colour of the Friendly Brothers of St Patrick, an Irish fraternity founded in about 1750.

St. Patrick’s Day is now widely celebrated as the secular holiday with many of its worldwide participants seeking to enjoy the Irish culture in the general instead of the specially celebrating the St. Patrick’s contribution to spread of the Christianity in the Ireland.

At this day, food is an important part of the celebration, with many people turning to the “traditional” Irish food like the corned beef and the cabbage and the soda bread. Many people prepare the green food for St. Patrick’s Day- anything from the green pasta, green pizza and the green eggs and ham to the green deserts and pastries. And of course, there is the plenty of beer and liquor especially in pubs. In fact, Guinness has even tried to make St. Patrick’s Day a national holiday in the United States. 

Resources:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/picturegalleries/7465886/St-Patricks-Day-at-the-Cheltenham-Festival-and-in-Dublin-Ireland.html?image=5

Las Fallas, Valencia

Every March Valencia gets ready to welcome the spring. Las Fallas is undoubtedly, it is one of the most unique and the crazy festivals in the Spain. The streets fill up with the joy and the hustle and bustle of the Fallas Festival. Then again, Spain is the country known for its unique and the odd fiestas. What started as the feast day for the feast day for the St. Joseph, the patron saint of the carpenters which has evolved into the 5-day, multifaceted celebration involving the fire.
The people of the Valencia live their most international festival to the maximum and their kind and the natural character invites everyone to visit the city and join in the fiesta, where everything that is bad is burnt and reborn from ashes to welcome the new season.

Las Fallas means “the fires” in the Valencia. The main focus of the fiesta is the creation and the destruction of the “puppets” od “dolls” (“ninots”), which are the huge cardboard, wood, paper- machè and the plaster statues. The ninots or the puppets are extremely lifelike and usually depicts the bawdy, satirical scenes and the current events.

Events during the Fallas:
The 5 days and night of the event of Fallas are continuing party. There are multitudes of the processions historical, religious, and comedic. The crowd is seen everywhere whether in the restaurants spill out into the streets.

La Despertà: 
Every day of the Fallas begins at the 8.00 am with the La Despertà also known as the wake-up call. The Brass bands appears from the casals and begin to the march down the evry street playing the lively music.

La Mascletà 
The Mascletà, an explosive barrage of coordinated firecracker and fireworks displays, takes place in each neighbourhood at 2:00 pm every day of the festival. The Mascletà is almost unique to the Valencian Community, hugely popular with the Valencian people and found in very few other places in the world. Smaller neighbourhoods often hold their own mascletà for saint's days, weddings and other celebrations.

La Plantà
The day of the 15th all of the falles infantils are to be finished being constructed and later that night all of the falles majors (major Falles) are to be completed. If not, they face disqualification.

L'Ofrena de florsA
In this event, the flower offering, each falla casal takes an offering of flowers to the Virgin Mary as Our Lady of the Abandoned. This occurs all day during the fest. A statue of the Virgin Mary and its large pedestal are then covered with all the flowers.

La Cremá 
The puppets remain in the place until the day known as the Burning (La Cremá ). It starts in the early evening, the young men with the axes chop it cleverly-hidden holes in the statues and stuff them with the fireworks. All the crowds start to chant, all the streetlights are turned off and all of the ninots are set on the fire exactly at 12.am (midnight).  From over the years the firemen (local bomberos) have devised the unique ways to protect the town’s buildings from being accidentally set on the fire by the ninots such as neatly covering the storefronts with the fireproof traps. Every year, one of the ninots is spared from the destruction by the popular vote. This ninots is called as the pardoned puppet or the ninot indultat and it is exhibited in the local Museum of Ninotalong with the other favourites from the past years.

Besides the burning of the puppets, there is the myriad of the other activities during the fiesta. During the day, one can enjoy the extensive roster of the bullfights, paella contest, parades and beauty pageants around the city.

Fire, fireworks, smoke, and excitement make this festival a cross between Disney World and the apocalypse.

Resources:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2010/mar/18/spain