Images from India

All from a Big Picture photoessay at Boston.com. Click images to enlarge.

Top: A Theyyam dancer waits to perform during festivities marking the start of the annual harvest festival of "Onam" in the southern Indian city of Kochi September 2, 2008. The 10-day long festival is celebrated annually in India's southern coastal state of Kerala to symbolise the return of King Mahabali to meet his beloved subjects.

Center: A Hindu woman has her hand painted with henna during the Teej festival in the northern Indian city of Allahabad September 2, 2008. Hindu women fast and pray for the good health and long life of their husbands during the Teej festival.

Bottom: A mask is shown being put on the back of honey collector Madhusudhan Mondal's head, in Bali, a village in the Sundarbans, India, Tuesday, Aug. 5, 2008. The Sundarbans forest, a remote tangle of unforgiving islands dangling off the eastern edge of India, is home to perhaps the world's largest population of tigers, prone to attacking humans, as well as 4 million people who are among the poorest in India. Locals believe that tigers do not attack humans from the front and wear masks on the back of their heads in the hope of warding them off.