The first thing that comes in our mind when we think about Lohri is born fire, dance, food baskets, peanuts, and popcorns. Lohri is called as the harvest festival of India is also known as Lohadi or Lal Loi. It is linked to the Bikrami calendar and is celebrated the day before the festival of Maghi celebrated in India as Makkar Sankranti.
How is it celebrated?
People celebrate Lohri by greetings, dancing, chanting Lohri songs while circle around bonfire feeding the fire with popcorns, rewris, and peanuts.
Lohri is a festival of Punjab and is celebrated primarily by Hindus and Punjabis in most of northern India. It is an official restricted holiday in Punjab.
It comes in the month of ‘Paush’ and is set by the solar part of the lunisolar Punjabi calendar and mostly comes on Jan 13of the Gregorian calendar. Til (black sesame seeds), Jaggery, gajjak, peanuts, and popcorn are fed to fire as a part of the harvest ritual. The day of the Lohri festival is believed as an end to winters and the beginning of off-spring. Also, it is linked to ‘Winter Solstice’ which means the shortest day and longest night.
How the word Lohri originated?
The word Lohri has come from the word Tilohri,’ i.e. ’til’ meaning sesame and ‘rorhi’ meaning jaggery/gur. It is believed that these two ingredients cleanse the body and bring new energy for the new year. Feeding these ingredients are considered as gratitude paid to fire. Also, this day is fulfilled for kids they go from door-to-door singing folk songs and get sweets, and savouries and even money sometimes in return.
The festival is also known to promote brotherhood. Like every festival has its history or reasons to celebrate, Lohri is enriched with religious reasons.
The bon fire
Born fire symbolizes the god fire and is believed to take away all the negativity from life and brings peace, happiness, and prosperity showering their blessings on people.
Walking around the bonfires is considered auspicious, especially for the new brides and newborns in Punjab where devotees believe that the prayers will be heard immediately filling life with positivity, happiness, and abundance.
Harvesting
“Aadar aye dilather Jaye” i.e. “may honour come and poverty vanishes” is what Punjabi farmers chant on this day.
This day is considered as a new year for Punjabi farmers, and they celebrate it to show their pray to Lord Agni to bless their land with abundance and show gratitude for the crops before the harvesting begins.
Winter foods
The delicious delicacies prepared on this day give the people another mouth-watering reason to celebrate it. The traditional Punjabi menu consisting of Makki ki roti, sarso ka saag, till ki burfi, gur ki roti, makhana ki kheer and much more make this celebration more alluring.
Eating Til rice on this traditional day mixed with Jaggery, sesame seeds and rice is considered auspicious and is believed to enhance the positivity for the coming year.
The festival that includes dance, delicious delicacies and gets together is nothing less than a feast in India. Therefore celebrating Lohri is fun in itself.