National Festivals

National festivals are celebrated in India to remember the sacrifice and the difficulties that our older generations faced to make India free from the Britishers. We celebrate these festivals with a lot of joy and it creates a feeling of nationalism and unity among every person irrespective of age, caste, color, region, religion and any other types of discrimination. It creates a feeling of belonging to one nation or country. We celebrate it to thank the people who sacrifice their life for our benefit.

-Sangam Pal, VV DAV Public School

Above images are clicked in the school permises & are compiled by Sangam Pal, VV DAV Public School

National festivals

Songkran is the traditional Thai New Year which is celebrated for three days in April by washing sins away and blessing friends with water. Young people have a fun time with buckets of water, huge water guns and hoses to get everyone wet. You may also get covered in white clay filler

(Din Saw Pong), a custom originating from the chalk used by monks to mark blessings. This combination of water and powder is almost identical to the celebrations of Holi. This white clay filler maybe originated in India. People also go to the temple to pray and give food to monks. They cleanse Buddha images by pouring scented water over them. In northern Thailand, people build stupa-shaped piles of sand and decorate them with colorful flags and flowers.

Loy Krathong is an ancient festival to honor and thank the water spirits for all the water provided during the growing season. It usually celebrate on the first full moon in November after the rice harvest.

At night, the people will float the candle-lit banana-leaf bowls called Krathong containing some flowers or a coin on the river. The act of floating away a raft is symbolic of letting go of all bad things of the past year and ushering good luck in the coming year. Some people use bread Krathong so it won’t become a junk in the river. In the Northern of Thailand, the floating lantern called Khom Loi will light the dark sky.

April 6 is Chakri Day in Thailand, a public holiday which commemorates the founding day of the royal Chakri Dynasty by King Rama I in 1782 and the coronation day of the king. It is also a day for the people of Thailand to recognize the contributions of all the kings in the dynasty.

On Chakri Day, the king and other members of the royal family preside over a religious ceremony honouring the previous kings. Thai people are generally very patriotic and Chakri Day is a holiday which gives many people the opportunity to pay respects to the various monarchs who played important roles in shaping Thailand. Although all the kings are considered to have made significant contributions in one form or another. The King, accompanied by other members of the royal household, presides over the religious ceremonies held at the royal chapel. He will pay respects to his predecessors at the Royal Pantheon, which contains life-size statues of the first eight kings of the Chakri dynasty, and will lay a wreath at the statue of King Rama I at the Memorial Bridge.As this holiday always falls a few days before the three day Songkran festival, it is also an opportunity for many people to travel in preparation for the Songkran festival

-Nutta Sittipongpanich ,Tongto Luppanakul : Rajini School