With Nauroz celebrations underway across the globe, what better time to dive into various spring and new year festivals Pakistanis celebrate? A thread: 🌻🌹🌷🌼🪷🌸🌺 #SpringEquinox#Spring #نوروز
Basant:
It marks the advent of spring with people taking to the rooftops for kiteflying, traditional sweets, friends and family. It is celebrated in Punjab and KPK, along with Quetta and Khuzdar in Balochistan. People dress up in colourful clothes, (often yellow).
Baisakhi:
Celebrated on April 13th, it is a harvest festival that marks the Punjabi New Year. It is celebrated with a lot of fanfare, traditional Punjabi attire, processions, and traditional music and dance.
Holi:
Also known as the "Festival of Colors," it is celebrated by the Hindu community across Pakistan in March. People celebrate this festival by smearing coloured powder and water on each other, dancing, and enjoying sweets and other delicacies.
Jashn-e-Baharan
“Celebration of Spring” is marked by melas, music, dance, and poetry recitals, and people decorate their homes and streets with colourful flowers and lights in Sindh, Balochistan, Azad Kashmir and Gilgit Baltistan.
Nauroz:
One of the oldest festivals in the world, the Persian New Year's festival is celebrated on the first day of spring, usually the 21st of March. It is celebrated with particular zeal in Balochistan, GB, and by the Hazara community, Afghan migrants and some Pakhtun tribes.
Chilim Joshi Festival:
It is celebrated by the Kalash community to welcome the arrival of spring, and blooming cherry blossom flowers. During the festival, people wear traditional clothes, sing and dance, and offer sacrifices to their gods and goddesses.
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In medieval Muslim astrology, each Zodiac Sign had a Jinn associated to it. A thread on Zodiac Jinns from the Ajaib al Makhlooqat wa Gharaib al Maujoodaat, one of the most important works on Islamic cosmology and mythology:
Königin Pauline Württemberg wearing a Kashmir Paisley Shawl. Painting by Joseph Karl Stieler – ca. 1825. She was born a Württemberg and married a Württemberg. She is holding her son Karl who married Grand Princess Olga, and a Morris Rug
A short thread on the history of paisley:
In the Indo-Persian world, the Paisley, originally known as the Boteh/Ambi/Koyari/Kalka was influenced by the shape of a Cypress tree, or small, unripe Mango, both of which have strong cultural connotations of life and prosperity.
The Paisley motif, which evolved from the original buta design, became particularly prominent as it was adopted by Scottish weavers in Paisley, who produced imitations of Kashmiri Pashmina shawls.
Music has historically been at the forefront of resistance around the world.
During the 1940s, Urdu poetry took centre stage as protests erupted across British India, with calls for Independence louder than ever. A thread:
During the Pakistan Movement (1940-47), amid calls to join the Muslim League, Fateh and Mubarak Ali Khan sang the Qawalli, “Muslim Hay tou Muslim League Main Aa” - it not only became a hit but also became a slogan for the Muslim League.
Kaifi Azmi penned the poem: Aurat. It centres female agency, and participation in the Pakistan movement. Both revolutionary and romantic, it is reminiscent of what Jinnah thought and said about the political participation and agency of women.
When Sikandar conquered parts of the Indian Subcontinent, he appointed one of his men there, and went back.
Soon after, the people of the Subcontinent rebelled against him, and appointed a new King.
However, he soon turned tyrannical, and no one dared to utter a word against him. A great philosopher at the tome, tried to make the King see sense, however, he was imprisoned.
When the King needed the philosopher, he freed him again, and the scholar then wrote the book, Kaleela Wa Dimna. Kaleela and Dimna are two jackals, the main characters in the story.
In most parts of Pakistan, it is common for young girls to braid their hair parted in the centre, with two braids. Older women however, tie up their hair in one single braid.
A thread on plaiting hair:
Kalasha women however, a unique ethnic group, wear several braids in their hair throughout their lives. Little girls may wear their hair in one or two braids, but older woman have more plaits.
Mongol maidens tie their hair in several braids, but as they grow older, they make two braids. Mongols see the hair as an extension of the body, which is why Mongol women cover their braids.