The Cult of the Makar Sankranti

As the winter in India comes towards its dying stages, the harvest festival is celebrated in different parts of India. At the end of the harvesting season when everyone's storehouses are filled with grains and the people have a broad smile in their faces seeing their granaries, they celebrate by preparing different kinds of dishes and delicious food items with the newly harvested grains.

The harvest festivals are celebrated essentially as a thanksgiving to nature for a good harvest which is a main source of livelihood in this part of the world. Different kinds of food items are prepared in almost every household, which they savour themselves and also distribute among friends and relatives.

The dishes are first offered to the nature gods and then everyone join in a sumptuous feast. People also organise music and dance shows and enjoy for a few days to mark the festival.

Makar Sankranti is one of the most auspicious day for the Indians, and is celebrated in almost all parts of the country in myriad cultural forms, with great devotion, fervor & gaiety. The festival is known in different parts of India in different names.

Makar Sankranti marks the commencement of the sun's journey to the Northern Hemisphere and is a day of celebration all over the country. The day begins with people taking holy dips in the waters and worshipping the sun. The makar sankranti is the last day of the pous, a month in the hindu calendar.

In this day, in the northern India people take a dip in the river Ganges in places like Prayag in Uttar Pradesh, Hardwar in Uttaranchal, Patna in Bihar, Ganga Sagar in West Bengal and many other places. Kumbh Mela takes place every 12 years. The sun transcends to its northward journey orUttarayan and the day is generally one of the coldest in the entire winter.

In the different regions, the festival has different names and customs. Makar Sankranti is one of the few festivals, which is not directed to the moon, but to the course of the sun. Sankranti has a special religious significance for the great ancient Vedic deity Surya.

Andhra Pradesh

In Andhra Pradesh, it is known as Kanuma, also known as Pasuvula Panduga. Bhogi is the first day of the four-day festival. It is celebrated with a bonfire using wooden logs, other solid fuels and wooden furniture at home that are no longer of use.

In the evening, a ceremony called Bhogi Pallu, fruits of the harvest like regi pallu and sugarcane are collected along with flowers of the season. Money is often placed in a mixture of sweets and poured over children. The children then collect the money and sweet fruits.

The second and main day of the four-day festival, and is dedicated to the god Surya. The day marks the beginning of Uttarayana, when the sun enters the tenth house of the zodiac Makara. It is commonly called Pedda Panduga (Great Festival) in the state of Andhra Pradesh.

Ariselu, a traditional sweet dish is offered to the god. The third day of the four-day festival is dedicated to cattle and other domestic animals. Cattle, especially cows, are decorated, offered bananas, special food and worshipped.

On this day, the popular community sport Kodi Pandem will start being played for the next one or two days, especially in the coastal Andhra region of Andhra Pradesh. Mukkanuma is the fourth and final day of the four-day festival. Many families hold reunions on this day.

Assam

In Assam, it is known as bhogali bihu or Maghar Domahi. People prepare a hut kind of structure with bamboo, leaves and straw known as Bhelaghar or mejhis, which is later burnt and the delicacies prepared are offered to the fire god. The night before is Uruka, when people gather around a bonfire, prepare dinner and have fun.

The women members prepare the delicacies with various names like Shunga Pitha, Til Pitha etc. and some other coconut sweets called Laru or Laskara during the night and the male members and small girls lit bonfires and sing and dance around them. The celebrations also feature traditional games such as tekeli bhonga (pot breaking) and buffalo fights.

Bihar

In Bihar the biharis prepare dahi-chura by mixing curd and a kind of fried rice. Known as Sakraat or Khichdi in western Bihar and Til Sakraat or Dahi Chura in rest of Bihar, where people usually eat Dahi and Chura (flattened rice), sweets made of sesame seeds and sugar/jaggery like Tilkut, Tilwa (Til ke Ladoo) etc.

Gujarat

In Gujarat people generally distribute food items to relatives, they also fly kites to mark the occasion. Gujarati people eagerly wait for this festival to fly kites, called 'patang'. Kites for Uttarayan are made of special light paper and bamboo and are mostly rhombus-shaped with a central spine and a single bow.

The string often contains abrasives to cut other people's kites. Undhiyu (spicy mix of winter vegetables) and chikkis (made of sesame seeds, peanuts and jaggery) are the special recipes of the festival that are relished on this day. The Sindhi community celebrates Makar Sankranti as Tirmoori. On this day, parents send sweet dishes to their daughters.

Karnataka

In Karnataka it is known as puthari. A preparation of rice is offered to cows and bullocks, which are beautifully decorated and is considered sacred here. There are also song and dance arrangements to celebrate puthari here.

Men, women and children attired in colourful tunics visit friends and relatives and exchange pieces of sugarcane, a mixture of fried til, molasses, pieces of dry coconut, peanuts and fried gram. The significance of this exchange is that sweetness should prevail in all the dealings.

On this auspicious day, girls wear new clothes to visit their loved ones with a Sankranti offering on a plate and exchange the same with other families. This ritual is called Ellu Birodhu. Here, the plate would normally contain Ellu (white sesame seeds) mixed with fried peanuts, carefully cut dry coconut and finely cut bella (jaggery).

The mixture is called Ellu-Bella. The plate contains moulds of sugar candy (Sakkare Acchu) with a piece of sugarcane. During the occasion, newly married women gift bananas for five years to married women from the first year of their marriage. Flying kites, drawing rangolis, gifting red berries known as Yalchi kai are some of the intrinsic parts of the festival.

Another vital ritual in rural Karnataka is the display of decorated cows and bulls and their procession is taken out and they are also made to cross a fire and this custom is known as Kichchu Haayisuvudu.

Madhya Pradesh

In Madhya Pradesh this festival of sankrant is known by the name sakarat and is celebrated with great pomp merriment accompanied by lot of sweets.

Maharashtra

Maharashtra households prepare tilache laddus or sweets made of sesame seeds or til and jaggery or gud. Gulachi poli/puran poli is offered for lunch and a little gram flour, which has been roasted to golden brown in pure ghee. Married women invite friends/relatives and celebrate Haldi-Kunku. The guests are given til-gul and some small gift, as part of the ritual.

Punjab

In Punjab, the festival is Lohri. Here, families and friends gather together, throwing rice and sweets into the flames. It is a sacrifice to Agni, the god of fire. Almost everywhere there are colorful markets. Children go from house to house and sing Lohri folk songs.

Punjabis also prepare laddus and other sweet delicacies with peanuts and jaggery. Huge bonfires are lit on the eve of sankrant and which is celebrated as lohri. Sweets, sugarcane and rice are thrown in the bonfires, around which friends and relatives gather together. The following day, which is sankrant is celebrated as maghi.

The Punjabi's dance their famous bhangra dance till they get exhausted. Then they sit down and eat the samptions food that is specially prepared for the occasion.

Makar Sankranti is also especially evident in Maharashtra. In every house, the women prepare tilgud, sweets from the sugar of the fresh cane, mixed with sesame seeds. They give the sweets to neighbors and friends.

Tamil Nadu

In South India, especially in Tamil Nadu, Pongal lasts three to four days. Pongal in tamil means ‘to boil’. It is essentially a four day festival where different rituals are performed on each of these days. On the first day different unutilised items are thrown into the fire, lit of wood. The fire also keeps everyone warm in the cold winter. Girls make merry by dancing around the fire.

On the first day, people burn old clothes, as well as other old things for the new beginning, or throws them away. On Vakeesan Pongal, women cook the typical dish called Pongal in the morning. It consists of rice with fresh milk and syrup from the palm sugar of the new crop. The mash is usually cooked in the yard or in front of the house.

In front of the doors are colorful pictures, so-called Rangoli. Later people visit relatives and friends with different sweets and exchange greetings. This day is the most important of the Pongal festival. On the third day of Mattu Pongal, cows and buffaloes get thanked for their services. The animals get washed and adorned.

In some areas of Tamil Nadu, there is also a competition of the Jallikattu. It is also known as Manju Virattu. Young men have to tame a wild alcoholic bull with bare hands.

Uttarakhand

The religious ritual of the Uttarayani mela involves taking a pre-dawn bath at the confluence of Saryu and Gomati followed by an offering of water to Lord Shiva inside the Bagnath Temple. Those who are more religiously disposed, continue this practice for three days in a row which is known as 'Trimaghi'. On this day, people also give 'khichdi' (a dish made by mixing pulses and rice) in charity, take ceremonial dips in holy rivers.

West Bengal

Sankranti is also known as Poush Sankranti. Freshly harvested paddy and date palm syrup in the form of Khejurer Gur and Patali are used in the preparation of a variety of traditional Bengali sweets made from rice flour, coconut, milk and 'khejurer gur' and known as 'Pitha'. West Bengal celebrates the Ganga Sagar Mela. Thousands gather on this day on the banks of the Ganges near Calcutta and pay homage to Surya at sunrise. The pilgrims put leaf boats with lights on the water and let them slide down the aisle.