Well, I am an East Indian. My name is Saptarshi. I think you have heard that India is famous for it's rich traditions and culture. Many people of different religions and different small tribes live here. But there are only three main religions, they are Hindu, Muslim, and Christian. Since I belong to a Hindu family, I am going to tell you about the Hindu religion. Among the Hindus, there are many tribes and communities who have their own ways of living and traditions. I belong to the Bengali community of Hindu religion. In December, our main festival is Poush Parbon. We celebrate the festival by decorating floors and the walls in our houses in a special way. We wake up very early on the morning of the festival and at first, we bathe ourselves, then all the children present in the house give alponas (or to translate in your language, we decorate the floors by drawing flowers in a special method). We give alponas by grinding rice and then mixing the rice with milk in a proportionate manner so that the mixture becomes white, then we take abir (in your language it means a kind of colour made by drying flowers), grinding it and mixing it with flour. We take differernt colours of flowers some days before the festival to make different colours and dry them. After giving alponas, we help our elders cut fruits and bring different things like sweets, collect flowers from the garden for Prasad of Devi Laxmi, the goddess of wealth and prosperity. After the worship, the children in the house are given the prasad. Sweets are distributed among poor children. At night, the goddess is worshipped again and this time, a havan is performed. A havan means worshipping the goddess by lighting a bonfire and saying special things, known as mantras. The puja (or the worship) ends after the havan ends.
