9 years back when I moved to Delhi from Himachal, during the month of January I took holidays to celebrate Lohri with my family in Himachal Pradesh. Initially I was surprised that office has no holiday on Lohri and none of the other folks were very excited about this festival of India. While leaving for home, I was wishing Lohri to everyone. During this one of my colleague smiled and asked about things we do on Lohri. He was from Uttar Pradesh state of India and had hardly celebrated this festival. Then I realized that how important this festival is for Pubjabis and surrounding regions. So this festival is very popular in Punjab, Himachal and some parts of Delhi. Irrespective of the fact that many of the Indians don't celebrate the festival, I would like to wish everyone a Very Happy Lohri.
Lohri is one of the popular India festival which is mainly celebrated by Punjabi community of the country and particularly by Sikhs and Hindus.
Supposedly there are various origins of Lohri. Today when we were talking about the festival on lunch table, none of us was aware of the origin of Lohri and why is it celebrated with so much fun. The main thing about Lohri is about belief that festival is the cultural celebration of the winter solstice. People come out of their houses during late evening and celebrate the festival around bonfire. For some folks bonfire is about adding fun to the celebration while some have a religious meaning, perhaps..
Lohri is a fun filled festivity which is celebrated in the month of January for a good harvest that carries cultural and traditional significance.
Lohri is a fun filled festivity which is celebrated in the month of January for a good harvest that carries cultural and traditional significance.
To celebrate this festival, bonfire is arranged in almost every street. Every family comes out with snacks to eat along with peanuts, revri, gachak etc. Earlier people used to tell stories around this bonfire which has changed over time. Now it's more about music, punjabi dhol and sing 'lohris'. Usually people spend whole night around this bonfire, while some of the folks have fun for few hours and go inside their cozy homes. It's a very interesting festival which offers lot of fun with friends and family.
In rural India, the festival starts 8 days before. Kids make small groups and each group either has boys or girls. Although with time, mixed groups are also encouraged if the group sings both types of Lohris. There are different Lohris for boys as well as girls. So all these groups start visiting the neighborhood 8 days before the main festivity. They go to each doorstep, sing Lohri and get back some gifts in form of sweets, money or local grain. I have enjoyed doing all this in my childhood with friends. We used to collect good amount of cash to sponsor new games for our local clubs and it used to be the time to upgrade different gadgets.
Sale of firwood, Peanuts, jaggery projects & other sweets made up of 'til'. During the same time, other states of India and communities celebrate it in different ways.
Happy Lohri !
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