Sankranti, Pongal and Lodi

Last Tuesday was the day of Sankranti. A festival that is widely celebrated in India, but in different ways and by different names.

Many across the country fly colorful kites on this day to celebrate this festival. Sankranti is associated with the end of the harvesting season, so to get a real feel of this festival you need to venture out of the cities and into the villages and small towns. Note: Picture of reels of kites and kite-strings by Indian.


In Mysore, I remember my local friends distributing a sweet-dish, yellu - a mix made with sesame seeds, coconuts, sugar blocks. A common custom found across Karnataka is the exchange of sugarcane pieces and yellu with one's neighbors, friends and relatives. You can see cows and and bullocks gaily decorated during this day. They are fed Pongal - a sweet preparation of rice and special prayers are offered as a part of the celebrations of the harvesting season. In the evening, the cattle are led out in procession to the beat of drums and music. At night a bonfire is lit and the animals are made to jump over the fire.

In Uttar Pradesh, people eat only vegetarian food on this day, especially khichdi (rice cooked together with black lentils). Taking a dip in the holy rivers on this day is regarded as most auspicious. A big one-month long fair called Magha Mela begins in Allahabad. Ritual bathing also takes place at other Hindu holy places such as Haridvar and Garh Mukteshwar.

Tamil Nadu calls this festival Pongal, as does some other states in South India. Pongal takes its name from the surging of rice boiled in a pot of milk, and this festival has more significance than even Diwali and signifies the beginning of the New Year. Rice and pulses cooked together in ghee and milk is offered to the family deity after the ritual worship.

In Maharashtra on the Sankranti day people exchange multi-colored tilguds made from sesame seeds and sugar and til-laddus made from til and jaggery. Women dress up - you can see more saries than usual - on this day while men, like always, don't bother! :-)

In Punjab where this is usually the coldest time of the year, huge bonfires are lit on the eve of Sankranti. This festival is popularly called Lodi there. Sweets, sugarcane and rice are thrown in the bonfires, around which friends and relatives gather together. The Punjabis dance their famous Bhangra dance before sitting down to feast on a variety of food specially prepared for the occasion.

Like is common with many Hindu festivals, there are multiple mythological stories connected to Sankranti. Bhishma, one of the key characters of the Mahabharata, is also supposed to have died on this day.