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Spice of Life : Savouring Lohri festivities in days of yore and now
No matter what the meteorologist forecasts, we Punjabis firmly believe that Lohri falls on the coldest day of the year. So, huddling by the bonfire and snacking on gachak, rewari, chikki and peanuts comes in handy to keep us warm, writes Sona Sethi
Papa loved Lohri and so we celebrated it religiously. I’ve often wondered where his love for the festival stemmed from, for he did not grow up in Punjab. His growing-up years were mostly spent in Bombay and Calcutta, where Lohri wasn’t a big deal. I can only conjure that it came from the times he spent in Shimla with his grandparents.
No matter what the meteorologist forecasts, we Punjabis firmly believe that Lohri falls on the coldest day of the year. So, huddling by the bonfire and snacking on gachak, rewari, chikki and peanuts comes in handy to keep us warm.
Every year on January 13, as the evening drew close, the excitement set in. We would watch our Man Friday set up the Lohri, under papa’s directions. He had to make sure that the logs, twigs and branches were dry and arranged in a heap on a bed of sand. Buckets of water stood at hand in case the fire decided to get out of control.
At dusk, the family dressed in the warmest of attire, would trickle outside and stand by the fire, grabbing handfuls of popcorn and unshelled peanuts, some going in our mouths, while the rest were thrown into the bonfire. Papa would invariably start singing Sundar Mundriye in its entirety. We, who didn’t know beyond the first stanza, would shout along “hoye”.
If I look back even further, in the seventies, groups of children would come to the doorstep and sing Sundar Mundriye. At the end of the song, they would ask for Lohri. My brother and I still quite young, would stare at them in admiration, while our Beeji would give them coins and handfuls of rewari.
It was in my teenage years that Lohri started being celebrated like a big party in our neighbourhood sector park. All youngsters would be found there. It was the place to see and be seen. Music would blast on the sound system. Of course, that’s where I wanted to go. However, papa liked to celebrate Lohri at home, which was frustrating for me as I wanted to celebrate it with people my age. So, the age-old battle between the parent and child would ensue till a compromise was reached.
In the mid-nineties, I got married and moved to the US. Back then, things were very different from today. Lohri, Holi and Diwali would come and go and no one would know. It made me miss home a lot. In their place, we would celebrate Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. I enjoyed celebrating them, but I missed the festivities of my childhood.
Slowly, I started to draw parallel between Lohri and Halloween. As dusk fell, children would come knocking at our door to ask for candy. My mother-in-law had a custom of giving out coins. Children loved that and would flock from all neighbourhoods to her door. Subconsciously, she had brought a little bit of Lohri to Halloween.
I wanted my children to know about the festivals of my childhood and so we started to celebrate the same at home. Somewhere along the way, a friend started hosting an annual Lohri get-together, where we all huddled by the bonfire and ate popcorn and threw unshelled peanuts in the fire. Someone would start singing Sundar Mundriye and the rest of us joined in, even if it was only to sing “hoye”.
Papa has been gone a few years now, but as Lohri approaches, my thoughts go to him and the festival he loved so much. sonaksethi@gmail.com
The writer is a US-based freelance contributor.
