Contribute to the Research

Land Of Festivals is built on primary sources, lived experience, and community knowledge. You don't need to be a scholar to contribute — you just need to have experienced a festival and be willing to share thoughtfully.

📸 Submit Festival Photographs

We welcome photographs of Indian festivals from any region, any year. What we're especially looking for:

Domestic/home celebrations (not just public spectacles)
Rural and small-town festivals (under-documented compared to metro events)
Diaspora celebrations worldwide
Preparation and behind-the-scenes (idol-making, cooking, decorating)
Intergenerational moments (elders teaching children rituals)
Pre-2000 photographs (historical documentation — especially valuable)

All contributors receive full credit. Your name and, if you wish, a link to your portfolio or social media will appear alongside your photograph. You retain copyright; we request a non-exclusive license to display on this site. Photographs remain yours to use elsewhere.

How to Submit Photos

Send your photographs via email to:
photos@indianfestivals.net

Please include:

The photograph(s) as attachments (JPG or PNG; original resolution preferred)
Which festival is depicted
Where and when the photograph was taken (city/village, state, country, year)
A brief description (1–3 sentences about what we're seeing)
How you'd like to be credited (name as you want it displayed, optional website/social link)
Confirmation that you took the photograph and grant permission for its use on this site

📝 Submit Personal Festival Stories & Oral Histories

Your memories are primary sources. We're collecting:

Childhood festival memories — What did Diwali/Holi/Eid/Christmas/Onam feel like when you were a child? What did the house smell like? What did you eat? Who came?
Elder oral histories — Interview a parent or grandparent (70+) about how festivals were celebrated in their youth. These are urgent — this generation's knowledge is irreplaceable.
Diaspora stories — How do you celebrate Indian festivals outside India? What changed? What was lost? What did you invent?
Migration stories — How did Partition, displacement, or economic migration change your family's festival traditions?
Conversion/interfaith stories — How do families with multiple religious traditions navigate festivals?

How to Submit Stories

Send your story via email to:
stories@indianfestivals.net

Please include:

Your story (any length — a paragraph or several pages are equally welcome)
Which festival(s) and region(s) it concerns
Approximate year(s) the story covers
How you'd like to be credited (you may choose to remain anonymous)
If it's an oral history from an elder: their name (with consent), their approximate age, and when/where the interview was conducted

Anonymity is respected. If you prefer not to be named, we will publish your contribution as "Community Contributor, [Region]" or with minimal identifying information. You can also ask us to use only your first name, or a pseudonym. We never publish personal contact information.

🔔 Request a Festival or Event to Be Added

We currently cover 34 festivals. India has thousands more. If there's a festival — regional, local, community-specific, or newly emerging — that you think deserves documentation, let us know.

We're especially interested in:

Regional festivals not yet included (e.g., Vishu in depth, Paryushan, Ambubachi Mela, Pushkar Fair)
Adivasi/indigenous festivals (Sohrai, Tusu, Sekrenyi, Aoling, Behdienkhlam)
Community-specific festivals (Sindhi Cheti Chand, Tamil Aadi Perukku, Kashmiri Herath as standalone)
Emerging festivals (Pride parades in Indian metros, International Yoga Day, literature/film festivals as cultural events)
Historical festivals that have declined or disappeared

How to Request a Festival

Send your request via email to:
requests@indianfestivals.net

Please include:

Festival name (and local names/variants, if known)
Which region(s) and community/communities celebrate it
When it occurs (month, season, or specific calendar date)
Why you think it should be included (significance, uniqueness, under-documentation)
Any sources you can point us to (books, articles, websites, community contacts)

We review all requests. Due to research capacity, not every suggested festival can be added immediately, but every request informs our editorial priorities. We respond to all submissions within 4 weeks.

🙏 Thank You

This project exists because communities share their knowledge. Every photograph, every oral history, every grandmother's recipe, every childhood memory of a festival morning — these are the primary sources that make this research real. Thank you for contributing.