When I first got married and moved to the US(several years ago! :)) I hardly knew what ‘Halloween’ was. All I knew was kids were dressed up as ghosts and goblins and asked for treats(and that is all I know today, too! ;)) Fast forward, to today – Oct 31st, 2018 and we are celebrating Halloween in Bangalore, India too! I thought I was done celebrating Halloween for my kids once we moved out of US! But no – we celebrated it from the very first year we moved to Bangalore, India and no one was unhappy! 🙂
And so, to answer my title question, yes, Halloween is celebrated in India! – with the usual tricks and treats! 🙂 But of course, not all of India celebrates it – only the bigger cities of India which are the melting point of different customs and cultures celebrate it.
How do we celebrate it here?
It is a similar celebration as in the US. There are stores that start selling Halloween costumes and masks well in advance of the Halloween day. The entire Halloween preparation is exciting for the kids. While we don’t have explicit pumpkin patch visits and pumpkin carvings – we still do the other fun things! 🙂
Kids deciding the costumes, picking them up, buying candy are all the same fun things as in the US. The marked difference is the weather in Bangalore, India is not that chilly as in Detroit for this time of year.
The kids go trick or treating in their respective communities and some communities like ours have close to 400+ flats and one can imagine the amount of treats from all the houses!
The city of Bangalore boasts of Halloween parties for adults too. There are ‘Spooky Halloween Hip Hop night’ and ‘Halloween Vibes’ as you can eat and dance the night away!
Did I ever feel I left the US?! 🙂