Bonfire Nights - U.K. and India.

Bonfire Night

, Fireworks Night and Plot Night, is an annual celebration (but not a public holiday on the evening of the 5th of November primarily in the United Kingdom, but also in New Zealand, South Africa, the province of Newfoundland and Labrador Canada, and formerly in Australia, and to some extent by their nationals abroad. It celebrates the failure of the Gunpowder Plot, in which a group of Catholic conspirators attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliamentin London on the evening of 5 November 1605, when the Protestant King James I (James VI of Scotland) was within its walls.

The celebrations, which in the United Kingdom take place in towns and villages across the country, involve fireworks displays and the building of bonfires, traditionally on which "guys", or dummies, representing Guy Fawkes, the most famous of the conspirators are burnt.

Holi

or Holikotsava is a festival that occurs around March and is celebrated over two days. On the evening of the first day bonfires are lit, normally in a public place. On the second day people throw coloured powder and water at each other. Holi is one of the few festivals that has yet to acquire the character of being a religious and private festival along with being a public occasion for rejoicing which all festivals are. Holi is almost totally a public festival and as such there is hardly any Holi celebrations inside private homes in the sense in which is understood. Holi is not only a purely public festival in the manner of its celebration but also in the manner in which people prepare for it.

Weeks before the arrival of Holi, gangs comb the neighbourhood and collect all waste-wood, old wooden furniture etc. which they can lay their hands upon. After weeks of preparation judiciously combined with activities that come close to pillaging, assorted pieces of wood are piled up to be lit on the evening of the festival day.