The colours of joy

Before many Hindu weddings, relatives rub turmeric paste on the bride and groom in the haldi ceremony. The yellow stands for blessing and a happy start.

At Holi, people throw coloured powder called gulal, most often pink and red, over family, friends and strangers to welcome spring.

Happy events such as weddings and births are called 'red affairs'. The double happiness character is cut from red paper and pasted up at weddings.

Red and white together, called kohaku, mark celebrations. Striped red and white curtains hang at openings, graduations and festivals.

The yellow smiley face was drawn in 1963 by Harvey Ball in Worcester, Massachusetts, for an insurance company's staff campaign.

Among the Akan, white is worn for joyful occasions such as a birth, a victory or recovery from illness, in contrast to the dark cloth of funerals.

A vivid pink known as rosa mexicano, named by the designer Ramón Valdiosera, is used in dress, craft and buildings as a sign of Mexican festivity.

On Pohela Boishakh, the Bengali New Year in April, women wear white saris with red borders and men wear red and white panjabis for the morning processions.

At the gaye holud, held a day or two before a wedding, relatives rub turmeric paste on the bride and groom. Guests dress in yellow and orange.

On Pohela Falgun, the first day of spring, young women wear yellow and orange saris, a shade called basanti, with flowers in their hair.

The Rose Valley near Kazanlak grows pink damask roses for rose oil. The harvest in late May and June is marked by a festival and the crowning of a Rose Queen.

The national football team plays in a yellow shirt with green trim, the canarinho. It was chosen in a newspaper contest after the 1950 World Cup final was lost in white.

Red stands for good fortune and happiness. Brides traditionally wear it, doors are hung with red couplets at New Year, and gifts of money come in red envelopes.

Yellow is the colour of Our Lady of Charity of El Cobre, patron of Cuba, and of Ochun, the Santeria spirit of rivers and love. Pilgrims bring her sunflowers.

Decorated Easter eggs are called kraslice, a name that comes from an old word for red. Girls give them to boys on Easter Monday.

At the San Fermin festival in Pamplona each July, runners and crowds dress in white with a red neckerchief and red sash.

Yellow daisies called adey abeba cover the highlands at the end of the rains in September. Children give bunches of them at Enkutatash, the New Year.

On the eve of May Day, students and former students of every age put on their white graduation caps for picnics and parties in the parks.

Queen Victoria married in white silk and lace in 1840. Prints of the dress spread widely, and white became the usual colour for brides across the West.

White is worn for a baby's naming day, for thanksgiving after an illness and at the funeral of someone who died very old, when the family gives thanks for a long life.

Eggs are dyed red on the Thursday before Easter to stand for the blood of Christ. After the midnight service families crack them against each other.