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| Festival Makeup’s |
Every autumn, as the monsoon recedes and the skies clear over the subcontinent, millions of Indians turn toward a single, resonant idea: that good ultimately prevails over evil. This is the heart of Dussehra, also known as Vijayadashami.
Yet the festival is never a single story told the same way. It is a vast, living tapestry woven from the Ramayana and the Devi Mahatmya, from royal processions and tribal rituals, from towering flaming effigies and quiet immersions of goddess idols. What unites the celebrations is the conviction that righteousness, courage, and divine power can restore balance when chaos threatens.
Hindus follow a lunar calendar. Dussehra falls on the tenth day (Dashami) of the bright fortnight of the month of Ashwin, immediately after the nine nights of Navratri. In 2026, most of India observes it on October 20, while parts of Bengal and some southern traditions mark Vijayadashami on October 21 because the Dashami tithi stretches across both days.
Two Victories, One Day
The festival’s power comes from its dual mythological foundations. In northern and much of western and central India, Dussehra commemorates Lord Rama’s victory over the ten-headed demon-king Ravana. According to the Ramayana, Ravana abducted Sita and carried her to Lanka. Rama, aided by his brother Lakshmana, the devoted Hanuman, and an army of vanaras, crossed the ocean, fought a prolonged battle, and finally defeated Ravana.
The name “Dussehra” itself is often linked to the defeat of the ten-headed one (dasha + hara).
In eastern India and in many southern traditions, the same day celebrates Goddess Durga’s triumph over the buffalo-demon Mahishasura.
After a fierce nine-day battle, the goddess, embodying the combined power of the gods, slays the shape-shifting asura and restores cosmic order. Vijayadashami—literally “the tenth day of victory”—embraces both narratives. The two stories are not rivals; they are complementary expressions of the same moral truth. Rama models dharma through disciplined human effort and alliances. Durga represents the fierce, protective energy of the divine feminine that rises when ordinary forces fail.
This layered meaning helps explain why the festival feels simultaneously intimate and national. It speaks to personal struggle—the “Ravana within” of ego, greed, anger, and pride—while also affirming collective hope that justice and balance can be restored.
North India: Ramlila and the Fires of Ravan Dahan
In the Hindi heartland, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and parts of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, the days leading up to Dussehra belong to Ramlila. Amateur and professional troupes stage episodes from the Ramayana in open grounds and temporary stages. Actors in elaborate costumes and heavy makeup portray Rama, Sita, Lakshmana, Hanuman, and the demons. The performances often draw on Tulsidas’s Ramcharitmanas, blending poetry, song, dialogue, and spectacle. Crowds sit on the ground or in makeshift galleries, eating street food, chatting, and absorbing the moral drama. The climax arrives at dusk on Vijayadashami.
Giant effigies of Ravana, his brother Kumbhakarna, and his son Meghnad (Indrajit)—sometimes reaching 50, 100, or even over 200 feet—are filled with fireworks and set alight. An actor portraying Rama shoots a flaming arrow.
The structures erupt in sparks and flames as the crowd cheers “Jai Shri Ram.” The burning is both theatrical and symbolic: the destruction of arrogance and adharma. In 2024, President Droupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi attended the event organised by the Shri Dharmik Leela Committee near the Red Fort, underscoring the festival’s public and national character.
Varanasi’s Ramnagar Ramlila stands apart. Recognised by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage, it unfolds over roughly a month across the town itself. Different locations become Ayodhya, Chitrakoot, or Lanka; audiences move with the story. The scale turns the entire landscape into a living stage.
The East: Durga Puja and the Emotional Farewell
In West Bengal, Odisha, Assam, Tripura, and among Bengali communities elsewhere, the focus shifts to Durga Puja. Temporary pandals—often architectural marvels themed around current events, history, or art—house magnificent clay idols of Durga astride her lion, spearing Mahishasura, flanked by her children Lakshmi, Saraswati, Kartikeya, and Ganesha. For days the city hums with dhaak drums, cultural programmes, and crowds in new clothes moving from one illuminated pandal to another.
Vijayadashami is the day of visarjan, the immersion. Married women perform sindoor khela, smearing vermilion on one another and on the goddess in a joyful, tearful farewell. Processions carry the idols to rivers or the sea.
The atmosphere mixes celebration with a poignant sense of parting: the goddess returns to her Himalayan abode until the next year. Kolkata’s Durga Puja has grown into one of the world’s largest public cultural festivals, blending devotion, artistry, and social gathering.
The South and Beyond: Royal Splendour and Local Deities
Mysuru (Mysore) Dasara is among the most visually spectacular. Rooted in the Wadiyar dynasty’s traditions and linked to Goddess Chamundeshwari’s victory over Mahishasura, the ten-day festival culminates in the Jamboo Savari. A golden howdah carrying the goddess’s idol is borne by a decorated elephant (in recent years the veteran Abhimanyu has often held the honour). Caparisoned elephants, horses, dancers, musicians, and floats process through the city while the Mysore Palace blazes with nearly 100,000 lights. Cultural programmes, music, and dance fill the nights. It is both state festival and living royal pageant.
In Himachal Pradesh’s Kullu Valley, Dussehra begins rather than ends on Vijayadashami and lasts a week. An idol of Lord Raghunath (Rama), installed in the 17th century, is treated as the valley’s ruling deity. Local village deities arrive in processions to pay homage. There is no traditional burning of Ravana; instead, a symbolic structure representing Lanka may be set alight, and the focus remains on the gathering of the gods and community fair. The event has international status and draws hundreds of thousands.
Bastar in Chhattisgarh offers one of the most distinctive versions. The festival can stretch for 45 to 75 days and centres on the tribal goddess Danteshwari and local deities rather than Rama or the classical Durga narrative. Rituals include chariot processions, musical performances, and community participation that reflect the region’s indigenous cultural identity. No Ravana effigy is burned.
Elsewhere, practices continue to diverge. In parts of Maharashtra, people exchange leaves of the Apta or Shami tree as symbols of gold and prosperity, recalling the Mahabharata story of the Pandavas hiding their weapons. In Kerala and parts of Tamil Nadu, Vidyarambham marks the formal beginning of a child’s education: the child writes the first letters in rice or sand under the guidance of elders. In some villages, such as Bisrakh in Uttar Pradesh or Ravangram in Madhya Pradesh, communities that claim descent from or special reverence for Ravana as a great scholar and devotee of Shiva refrain from burning his effigy and instead offer prayers.
Beyond Ritual: Meaning in a Changing India
Dussehra’s endurance lies in its capacity to absorb contemporary life without losing its core. Pandal themes in Kolkata have addressed politics, social issues, and environmental concerns. Effigies sometimes incorporate current symbols of excess or injustice. The festival also marks the practical beginning of preparations for Diwali, which arrives roughly twenty days later. Shops begin stocking lights, sweets, and gifts; families plan reunions.
At a deeper level, the festival invites introspection. The ten heads of Ravana are traditionally interpreted as the ten vices that must be conquered within. Spiritual teachers and writers repeatedly emphasise that the real battle is internal. As one contemporary reflection puts it, the victory of Rama or Durga is less about an external enemy than about the daily choice of dharma over adharma, compassion over arrogance, and light over the darkness we cultivate in ourselves.
The diversity of observance itself carries a quiet lesson. India does not celebrate Dussehra by imposing uniformity. Northern fires, eastern immersions, southern processions, Himalayan deity gatherings, and tribal rites coexist under the same calendar date and the same moral horizon. In an era of rapid urbanisation and cultural homogenisation, the festival remains a powerful demonstration of how local memory, regional aesthetics, and shared myth can reinforce one another rather than cancel each other out.
From the crackle of fireworks over a Delhi maidan to the quiet sindoor on a Bengali woman’s forehead, from the trumpeting of Mysuru’s elephants to the arrival of Kullu’s village gods, Dussehra continues to renew an ancient promise: that evil, however many heads it grows, can be confronted, and that the forces of order, courage, and grace remain capable of prevailing. The festival does not merely recall a past victory.
Each year, in countless different ways, it invites participants to enact that victory again—in public spectacle and in private resolve.
Samuel O. Sulaimon is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Naijapiz. He covers Global, News, Sports, Finance, Faiths, Education, Politics and Technology.
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