Haryana

Pounded pearl millet slow-cooked with moong dal into a thick porridge, eaten with ghee, jaggery or buttermilk in winter.

Thick pearl-millet flatbread patted by hand and baked on a tava or over a chulha, eaten with white butter, jaggery and greens.

Fresh bajra rotis crumbled with ghee and jaggery or shakkar, a simple sweet of Haryanvi farm homes.

A thin, tangy kadhi of sour buttermilk and gram flour, simmered long and tempered with fenugreek, eaten with rice or bajra roti.

Fresh green chickpeas cooked with a large bunch of green coriander, a winter vegetable dish of Haryana.

Small wild desert melons (kachri) cooked with spices into a tangy dry dish, a speciality of the sandy south and west of Haryana.

Tender cluster beans stir-fried with ajwain, garlic and spices, a common summer vegetable on Haryanvi tables.

The tender leaves of the gram plant cooked down with ghee, garlic and green chillies, a winter green of the Haryana countryside.

Red winter carrots cooked with fresh fenugreek leaves and simple spices, a quick dry vegetable dish.

A rustic flatbread of gram flour and wheat flour with onion, green chilli and spices, eaten with white butter and buttermilk.

Whole wheat roti kneaded with chopped bathua leaves and ajwain, a winter bread eaten with curd and white butter.

A thick, sweet whole-wheat roti made with jaggery and ghee, packed for journeys and field work.

Haryana's open-air folk theatre, in which troupes sing and act out old tales of kings, saints and lovers through the night.

A joyful dance of farming men and women in the month of Phalgun, when the winter crop is ripening and Holi arrives.

A spring dance of girls from the Bangar region of Haryana, sung as questions and answers between two groups.

A women's dance and play held in the groom's home on the night the wedding party leaves, full of song, mimicry and fun.

A Shakti Peetha at Thanesar, Kurukshetra, where Sati's ankle is said to have fallen. The Goddess is worshipped here as Bhadrakali (Savitri).

The land of the Mahabharata war, with the vast sacred tank of Brahma Sarovar and Jyotisar, where tradition holds Krishna taught the Gita.

One of the largest known sites of the Harappan (Indus Valley) civilisation, spread over several mounds in Hisar district.

A small wetland bird sanctuary near Gurugram that fills with migratory birds each winter, and a Ramsar site.

A 17th-century Mughal terraced garden at the foot of the Shivalik hills, with fountains, water channels and palace pavilions.

An ancient amphitheatre-shaped reservoir near Faridabad, home every February to the Surajkund International Crafts Mela.

Haryana's only hill station, in the Shivalik range, with forested ridges, a small fort and the twin lakes of Tikkar Tal.