Bengal & Eastern India

Bengali Hindu festivals are dominated by the worship of the goddess in her various forms. Durga Puja — the autumn worship of the warrior goddess Durga — is the largest cultural event of the Bengali year, observed from the sixth to tenth day of Sharad Navratri with elaborate pandals featuring increasingly artistic and conceptual themes, immersion processions called bisarjan, and the cultural festival of pandal hopping. Kali Puja replaces the Diwali Lakshmi Puja in Bengali Hindu households, with families worshipping the fierce mother goddess Kali on the new moon of Kartika. Saraswati Puja is observed on Vasant Panchami in early spring. Poila Boishakh — the Bengali New Year — falls on the first of Vaishakha and is celebrated across both India and Bangladesh. Bangladesh's Sunni Muslim majority observes the full Islamic calendar with public holidays for both Eids, Mawlid al-Nabi (called Eid-e-Milad-un-Nabi), and Shab-e-Barat. The Bishwa Ijtema in Tongi, Dhaka, is the second-largest annual Muslim gathering in the world after the Hajj.