📷 Festival of Lights — India
Festival of Lights
India · street
Hand-painted lanterns hang from ancient trees, turning the night into a constellation of color and warmth. A festival tradition that transforms ordinary streets into magic.
During festival season, entire neighbourhoods are transformed overnight. Trees that you walk past without noticing for eleven months of the year suddenly become the main attraction — draped in hand-painted lanterns, each one unique, each one glowing with the warmth of a small bulb or candle inside.
I found this particular tree in a lane that, by daylight, was completely unremarkable. But after dark it became the centre of everything. Families gathered beneath it. Children pointed upward. The lanterns swayed gently, casting coloured shadows on the ground. There's a word in Hindi — 'jagmagahat' — that means a kind of shimmering, twinkling radiance. That's exactly what this was.