Most Hindu festivals move about the calendar, and families check the panchang each year to find out when Diwali or Holi will fall. Makar Sankranti is the exception that stays put. It falls on 14 January almost every year, occasionally the 15th, because it is reckoned not by the moon but by the sun, and it marks a moment that has mattered to farmers since before there were calendars: the turning of the year towards the light.
Across India the day has a dozen names and a dozen menus. It is Sankranti in Maharashtra and Karnataka, Uttarayan in Gujarat, Pongal in Tamil Nadu, Magh Bihu in Assam, Poush Sankranti in Bengal and Khichdi in the Hindi heartland, with Lohri in Punjab on the night before. Under the different names the elements are the same: the sun, the harvest, sesame, something sweet, and thanks.
The sun enters Makara
A sankranti is the sun's passage from one sign of the zodiac into the next, so there are twelve in a year. Makara is the sign of Capricorn. Makar Sankranti is the day the sun enters Makara, and in the sidereal reckoning used by the Hindu calendar it begins Uttarayana, the sun's northward journey of six months. Days lengthen and the crops sown after the monsoon are ready to be cut.
The sidereal zodiac has slowly drifted away from the seasons over the centuries, which is why the festival now falls about three weeks after the actual winter solstice of 21 or 22 December. Tradition is untroubled by this; the sun's entry into Makara is the moment that is kept.
Why Bhishma waited
In the Mahabharata, Bhishma, grandsire of both armies, falls on the tenth day of the war at Kurukshetra and lies on a bed of arrows. He had received from his father the boon of choosing the hour of his death, and he chooses to wait, in pain, for many weeks, until the sun turns north, and only then releases his breath. The Bhagavad Gita, spoken on the same battlefield, states the belief he was acting on:
Fire, light, day, the bright fortnight, the six months of the sun's northern course: departing by this path, those who know Brahman go to Brahman.
(Bhagavad Gita 8.24)
Uttarayana is the season of light, and it is auspicious to begin anything, including the final journey, as the light returns. Many families remember Bhishma on this day, and some offer water to the ancestors with sesame seeds, which are held to be pleasing to the departed.
Sesame, kites and bonfires
In Maharashtra the festival is about sesame and jaggery. Til, sesame, and gul, jaggery, are pounded together into small laddoos or set into flat brittle, and on the day everyone exchanges them with the words til gul ghya, god god bola: take til-gul, and speak sweetly. The oily seed and the sticky jaggery together stand for a friendship that binds. Married women hold haldi-kunku gatherings in the following weeks, and black clothes, avoided at other festivals, are worn on this one day because black holds the winter warmth.
In Gujarat the sky is the festival. From dawn on Uttarayan the rooftops of Ahmedabad and Surat fill with families flying paper kites on glass-coated string, and the shout of kai po che! goes up each time one cuts another's line. The kite is both a game and a greeting to the returning sun. The dishes of the day are undhiyu, a slow-cooked mix of winter vegetables, and chikki, sesame and peanut brittle.
In Punjab, Haryana and Himachal the festival begins the evening before, with Lohri. A bonfire is lit after sunset and neighbours gather round it, throwing in sesame seeds, jaggery, rewri (sesame toffee), peanuts and popcorn while circling the flame. Children go from door to door singing of Dulla Bhatti, a folk hero said to have rescued girls from being sold and found them husbands. A household's first Lohri after a wedding or a birth is a large affair, with the new arrival passed from lap to lap around the fire. The following day, Maghi, is marked with river bathing and, for Sikhs, a gathering at Muktsar.
Pongal: four days in Tamil Nadu
Tamil Nadu keeps the festival for four days around the start of the month of Thai. Pongal means to boil over, and the overflowing pot is the heart of it.
- Bhogi, the first day, is for clearing out. Old clothes, broken things and the year's clutter are burned at dawn, houses are cleaned, and fresh kolam patterns of rice flour appear at the doors.
- Thai Pongal, the second day and the Sankranti itself, is the main festival. At sunrise, in the open air, a new clay or brass pot is set on a fire, decorated with turmeric plants and a sugarcane stalk tied at its neck. Milk is heated in it, and when it froths over the rim the family shouts Pongalo Pongal! Rice and jaggery are added to make the sweet dish of the same name, which is offered to Surya, the sun, before anyone eats. The Tamil saying Thai pirandhal vazhi pirakkum, "when Thai is born, a way will open", sums up the mood.
- Mattu Pongal, the third day, belongs to the cattle. Cows and bulls are bathed, their horns painted and hung with bells, and they are fed the pongal first. In parts of the state the bull-taming contests of jallikattu take place on this day.
- Kaanum Pongal, the fourth day, is for visiting. Families go out to relatives, riversides and beaches, and women set out coloured rice for the birds with a prayer for their brothers' wellbeing.
From Assam to the Ganga
Assam's Magh Bihu, also called Bhogali Bihu, the Bihu of feasting, comes when the granaries are full. On the eve, called Uruka, young people build huts of bamboo and thatch called bhelaghar in the harvested fields, feast and spend the night there. At dawn the meji, a tall bonfire, is lit and offerings are made to Agni before the huts themselves are burned. The days are filled with pitha, rice cakes stuffed with coconut or sesame, and laru, sweet balls.
In Bengal the day brings an enormous pilgrimage to Sagar Island, where the Ganga meets the Bay of Bengal. Here, by tradition, the Ganga brought down by Bhagiratha first touched and released the ashes of the sixty thousand sons of King Sagara. Pilgrims take a dip at dawn on Makar Sankranti and visit the ashram of the sage Kapila. The Bengali saying has it that other pilgrimages may be made again and again, but Ganga Sagar is made once in a lifetime.
Across Uttar Pradesh and Bihar the festival is simply called Khichdi, after the dish of rice and lentils cooked with ghee and winter vegetables that is eaten and given away on the day. The great fair at the Gorakhnath temple in Gorakhpur is a khichdi fair, where pilgrims offer the dish to the deity. Across the north people bathe in the Ganga and give sesame, blankets and khichdi to the poor; charity, daan, belongs to the day everywhere, because what has been harvested is to be shared.
The shared theme
Strip away the regional dress and the festival is one. The sun has turned, the crop is in, and a people who live by both say thank you. The sesame seed appears in nearly every version: small, oily, warming, used both for the living and for the ancestors. The fire, whether Lohri's bonfire, Assam's meji or the Pongal hearth, is the sun brought down to the courtyard. And in every region the day is spent with others, because gratitude is something one does in company.
Celebrating at home
Rise early and, if you can, watch the sun come up; offer it a handful of water with the Gayatri mantra or simply with folded hands. Make til-gul or chikki, or a pot of sweet pongal with rice, milk and jaggery, and let it boil over on purpose. Give some away to a neighbour with the words til gul ghya, god god bola. Fly a kite if there is wind and a park. Cook khichdi in the evening, and set aside a portion, or its cost, for someone who needs it. Remember Bhishma, and think about what you have been waiting for the light to begin.