About festcountdown

What this site does

festcountdown answers two questions for each festival: when is it, and what time should the puja start? Every festival has a live countdown. When there's a muhurat, the countdown runs to the start of that window. On seven of the puja pages, a calculator also works out sunrise, sunset, Pradosh Kaal and the full Choghadiya for your city.

The site covers 12 festivals. Eight are Indian: Navratri, Dussehra, Diwali, Lakshmi Puja, Kali Puja, Chhath Puja, Varalakshmi Vratham and Raksha Bandhan. The other four are Halloween, Christmas, New Year and Chinese New Year. Every festival page also has a Hindi version.

Why we built it

Search for a festival date and the timing is often buried under horoscope widgets, or missing from holiday calendars altogether. We wanted a page that gives the date and the time straight away, then explains enough for you to trust them. It also had to load quickly on a mid-range phone over a slow connection.

How we check dates and timings

We check every puja date and muhurat against Drik Ganit panchang each year, instead of copying last year's page forward. Lunar festivals move a lot. Diwali is on 8 November in 2026 and on 29 October in 2027. The city timings come from each city's own sunrise and sunset, and we test the calculator against DrikPanchang's published tables.

What we won't do

We won't make up a number to fill a gap. Lagna-based windows such as Vrishabha Kaal can't be worked out reliably for every city, so we give the New Delhi time and say so on the page. Some timings have no panchang behind them at all, like trick-or-treat hours on Halloween. There we describe what most people do and call it a habit.

One page per festival

Each festival lives on a single page. The date and timing sit next to the explanation, and so do extras such as the Diwali wishes and gift ideas. When you change your city in the calculator, the times update without reloading the page.

Corrections

If a date or muhurat here looks wrong to you, please tell us. We especially want to hear from you if your family follows a regional panchang that differs from ours. Get in touch, or read our terms for the full accuracy note.