Sal Mubarak

Saal Mubarak (Gujarati: સાલ મુબારક, Persian: سال مبارک) is a Gujarati and Parsi greeting used to commemorate the Gujarati New Year, which is a day after Diwali: the Hindu and ,Jain festival of lights, the triumph of good over evil, and light over darkness, and Nauroz, the Zoroastrian new year. Saal is also a Indo-Persian word meaning year, and mubarak is an originally Arabic term meaning blessing or good wishes. Gujarati has many loanwords from Persian and Arabic, due to the Mughal invasion of India, and due to the Parsi influx into India after the Arab Invasion of Persia, Persian, Gujarati and Arabic share a some amount of vocabulary, along with Portuguese due to the Portuguese Colonisation of Western India.

It is also used by the Parsi community in India and Pakistan to mark Nauroz which occurs in either March or August depending on the specific Zoroastrian calendar used.

Hindu Gujarati New Year, also known as Bestu Varas (sitting year), is celebrated the day after the Diwali and is the fourth day of the five-day Diwali festival. The Hindu New Year is on Kartak Sud Ekam (The first month and first day of the HinduLunar Calendar, Kartak is the first month in this new year while Ekam refers to the first day).

The Hindu community all over the world celebrates the New Year to mark the beginning of a new fiscal year and people put their worries behind them and prepare to welcome a new beginning. Hindu's will continue with the festivities from Diwali the day before and decorate their homes with rangoli patterns and garlands, light diyas and set off fireworks. It is tradition for people to wear new clothes on New Years Day and to show respect to their elders to seek their blessings. Revellers will visit family and friends to exchange gifts of money and homemade sweets and wish health and prosperity for the new year. People will also visit mandirs to offer puja to the gods.

In other culture

The new year of Nepal Sambat, lunar calendar of Nepal, also starts on the fourth day of Diwali.