Halloween - an interesting concept!

i being an Indian, who has never stepped outside India, was never aware of halloween until recently. and this year, for whatever reason, i am repeatedly hearing a lot of talk about halloween. so i went about googling & this is what i got out of it. thought would post therm out here....

Halloween
Halloween is a tradition celebrated on the night of October 31, most notably by children dressing in costumes and going door-to-door collecting sweets. Halloween originated as a Pagan festival. The term Halloween, and its older spelling Hallowe'en, is shortened from All-hallow-even, as it is the evening before "All Hallows' Day" (also known as "All Saints' Day"). In Ireland, the name was All Hallows' Eve (often shortened to Hallow Eve), and though seldom used today, it is still a well-accepted label. Halloween is often associated with the occult. Many European cultural traditions hold that Halloween is one of the those times of the year when the spiritual world can make contact with the physical world and when magic is most potent!!! :-)

Trick or Treat
The main event of modern US-style Halloween is trick-or-treating, in which children dress up in costume disguises and go door-to-door in their neighborhood, ringing each doorbell and yelling "trick or treat!" Though, Trick-or-treating resembles the late medieval practice of "souling," when poor folk would go door to door, receiving food in return for prayers for the dead on All Souls Day.

Symbols
The imagery surrounding Hallowe'en is largely an amalgamation of the Halloween season itself, nearly a century of work from American filmmakers and graphic artists, and a rather commercialized take on the dark,diaria and mysterious. Black and orange are the traditional colors of Hallowe'en. In modern Hallowe'en images and products, purple, green, and red are also prominent.


Food **aah, my best part! :-)**
Because the holiday comes in the wake of the annual apple harvest, Candy Apples (also known as toffee, taffy or caramel apples) are a common treat at Halloween. They are made by rolling whole apples in a sticky sugar syrup, and sometimes then rolling them in nuts. **oh, boy, can somebody sponsor me a two-way trip only 4 1 day every year??** A Halloween custom which has survived unchanged to this day in Ireland is the baking (or more often nowadays the purchase) of a barmbrack (Irish "báirín breac"). This is a light fruit cake into which a plain ring is placed before baking. It is said that whoever finds this ring will find his or her true love during the following year. **wow! i love the ring concept**

Interesting facts
1. Halloween is most popular in Ireland, where it is said to have originated, is celebrated Halloween as Samhain, "End of Summer", a pastoral and agricultural fire festival or feast, when the dead revisited the mortal world, and large communal bonfires would be lit to ward off evil spirits.
2. Today in England, unlike other parts of the world, adults often dress up and go to fancy dress parties or pubs and clubs on Hallowe'en night. **and, what do the kids do?? :-)**
3. In the United States, Halloween has become the sixth most profitable holiday (after Christmas, Mother's Day, Valentines Day, Easter, and Father's Day) for retailers **boy, opportunists, yeah?!!**
4. The National Confectioners Association reported, in 2005, that 80 percent of adults planned to give out candy to trick-or-treaters, and that 93 percent of children planned to go trick-or-treating. **well, who funds them??**


Courtesy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween

Now after reading about Halloween I wonder what it would have been called if this was in celebrated in India???