The chief minister also appealed to the Ganeshotsav organising committees to avoid crowds outside the hundreds of venues where the festival is held.

Pune has a historic tradition of celebrating the 10-day festival dedicated to the elephant-headed god, and the most important celebration is Dagdu Sheth's Ganeshotsav there.

Even as Ramzan ends, the nine nights of Navratri starts Sep 19. It is again a mega celebration in Mumbai and Gujarat, with thousands of non-resident Indians joining the festivities.

Mumbai and major cities of Gujarat like Ahmedabad and Vadodara have huge marquees in which over 50,000 people can dance at a time to live music and dazzling lights, said Milan Thakar, a Mumbai astrologer who hops between the two Gujarat cities each year to savour the festival's best.

Barely a fortnight later, the Diwali week starts Oct 17 that will again witness huge crowds trooping to Mumbai from across the country - going out for shopping, parties or visiting relatives and friends.

Public and private functions are also organized across the city on Mahatma Gandhi's birth anniversary Oct 2.

Maharashtra assembly elections are due by September-end or early October as the term of the ruling Congress-Nationalist Congress Party's Democratic Front alliance ends in October.

The polls is the time for major political rallies, processions, public meetings and door-to-door campaigns as political leaders woo the electorate.

All these occasions offer a potentially fertile period for the H1N1 virus to further tighten its stranglehold on the state which has now recorded four swine flu deaths.

Punctuating the general and public festivals are the various college festivals which bloom during this time and attract huge crowds of students from the city and elsewhere.

Anticipating a massive turnout for its traditional monsoon festival 'Malhaar' organised Aug 14-16, the management of St. Xavier's College here has decided to bar students from outside Mumbai from attending it.