Pune has a full calendar of events, ranging from Classical Music to Rock Concerts. However, Pune's most famous festival is the Pune Festival, which is held during the Ganesha Mahotsav.
The Ganesh Mahotsav initiated by Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak, today is celebrated with great enthusiasm, as city interiors almost remain blocked for ten days. Pune has more than 2000 mandals with Dagdusheth Halwai being the biggest and most famous one.
Sawai Gandharva, which started back in the 1960s, has had every Indian and international artist perform and has given rise to a number of budding ones too. It is held in the months of December from dawn to dusk over three days.
The Osho Festival is another international crowd puller in Pune. Held in the Osho Aashram in Koregaon Park, disciples and followers of Bhagwaan Rajneesh make it a point to attend this festival.
The Chaturshringi Fair is an annual event. It is held overnight on Navratri at Senapati Bapat Road. Giant-wheels are the main attractions but the food sold at the stalls is delicious too.
The Pune International Film Festival - takes place annually and attracts some splendid films from around the world. This festival which generally takes place in January, lasts for a week and is a treat for film lovers in the city.
A number of College festivals have become very commercialised, but still attract big crowds and a very high degree of competition from colleges all over Pune. Verve organised by Express Youth Forum is the biggest inter-collegiate cultural festival in India while Concepts organized by the Pune Institute of Computer Technology (PICT) is a very popular engineering (technical) event.
So all year round, there is enough excitement to keep Puneites and tourists on their toes!
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Pune Travel Guide from Wikitravel. Many thanks to all Wikitravel contributors. Text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0, images are available under various licenses, see each image for details.
