Dev Uthani Ekadashi & Tulsi Vivah

Dev Uthani Ekadashi — also called Prabodhini or Devutthana Ekadashi — falls on the eleventh bright-fortnight day of the Kartik month (usually late October or November) and marks the moment Lord Vishnu is believed to wake from Yoga Nidra, the four-month cosmic slumber he entered on Devshayani Ekadashi back in Ashadha.

• Those intervening months are Chaturmas, a period when Vaishnav tradition suspends weddings, house-warmings and other auspicious rites.
• When Vishnu 'rises', the auspicious calendar reopens — which is why this Ekadashi is celebrated across Braj with such joy, and why it restarts the Hindu wedding season.
• The signature ritual is Tulsi Vivah, the ceremonial marriage of the sacred Tulsi plant — revered in tradition as the goddess Vrinda — to Shaligram, the fossil ammonite stone that embodies Vishnu-Krishna.
• Households and temple courtyards raise a small mandap around the Tulsi pot, wrap it in a red chunari, plant sugarcane stalks as a canopy, and conduct a full wedding with phere, mangal-sutra, sweets and the ululation of a real marriage.
• It is regarded as the season's first and most auspicious wedding, and many families perform it before fixing dates for their own.
• In Vrindavan and Mathura the observance is especially grand.
• Temples such as Banke Bihari, Radha Raman, Radha Vallabh, ISKCON's Krishna-Balaram Mandir and Prem Mandir dress their deities as bride and groom, fill the halls with kirtan and bhajan, light lamps and let off fireworks.
• Devotees who have kept the day-long Ekadashi fast break it the next morning; many also recall the year's other great Ekadashis — the waterless Nirjala fast of Jyeshtha and Devshayani in Ashadha — as the bookends of the same devotional cycle.
• For vegetarian travellers Braj is effortless: the whole region is pure-vegetarian by custom and municipal rule, and Ekadashi food is stricter still — many devotees avoid grains and eat only fruit, milk, potatoes and singhara (water-chestnut) flour.
• Sattvic kitchens like Govinda's inside ISKCON, MVT behind it, or Balaji Bhoj near Prem Mandir serve onion-garlic-free, egg-free thalis.
• One firm caution: Braj is a heavy bhang (cannabis) belt, and roadside thandai or lassi near the ghats and temple lanes can be laced with bhang that looks and is named exactly like the ordinary drink — never accept thandai from an unverified stall, especially around festival days.
• Plan for evening darshan, when the wedding ceremonies and illuminations peak.
• Carry a shawl for temple floors, expect dense crowds and long queues, and note that most sanctums forbid interior photography — keep phones away and simply absorb the bhajan-filled atmosphere.