Happy Vaisakhi!

Around 20 million Sikhs worldwide celebrate their New Year today, Tuesday, 14 April. The Sikh festival of Vaisakhi is the most important day in their calendar, commemorating the start of Sikhism in 1699 as a collective faith.
Vaisakhi is a long established harvest festival in the Punjab. It was in 1699 that the tenth guru, Guru Gobind Singh Ji, chose Vaisakhi as the occasion to transform the Sikhs into a family of soldier saints, known as the Khalsa Panth.
 
As Vaisakhi has such great importance in the Sikh religion, many activities are organised in Gurdwaras (Sikh place of worship). Sikhs all over the world celebrate the New Year with much devotion and community enthusiasm.
Families, young and old, wake up early to prepare for the day. They will usually visit the Gurdwara before dawn with gifts of flowers and special offerings, and, as the day goes on, colourful processions take in the surrounding streets.