Punjabi Samaj Jamshedpur, a Registered Association represents the people of Punjab origin settled in Jamshedpur. It is engaged in social and spreading rich culture of the Punjab by organizing various festivals, Lohri festival is one of them which we celebrate every year.
Lohri is celebrated in Punjab to celebrate the bountiful harvest, traditional signified with a bonfire where people celebrate with Music and Dance. Punjabi Samaj Jamshedpur has been celebrating this festival with great pomp and joy over the past many many years. All the members of the Samaj get together for a lively evening of dance and music, and other various activities put up by the members and their families.
What is Lohri? Why is it celebrated?
It is one of the greatest festivals of Punjab and Haryana and is celebrated on the 13th of January during the month of Paush or Magh, a day before Makar Sankranti.
Many people believe the festival was originally celebrated on winter solstice day, being the shortest day and the longest night of the year.
According to the Hindu calendar, Lohri falls in mid-January. The earth, farthest from the sun at this point of time, starts its journey towards the sun, thus ending the coldest month of the year, Paush, and announcing the start of the month of Magh and the auspicious period of Uttarayan.
In the morning on Lohri day, children go from door to door singing and demanding the Lohri 'loot' in the form of money and eatables like til (sesame) seeds, peanuts, jaggery, or sweets like gajak, rewri, etc.
This Punjabi festival has more to it than just rewri and groundnuts going into the bonfire.
To begin with, it's a festival that doesn't play guessing games with us--like our beloved Diwali or Holi, where one complicated calendar or the other decides which day the festival "falls on". By default, Lohri--a Punjabi festival--is celebrated on January 13 each year.
Though popular belief has it that Lohri is celebrated to mark the end of peak winter, this festival is traditionally associated with the harvest of the rabi crops. The traditional time to harvest sugarcane crops is January, therefore, Lohri is seen by some to be a harvest festival. And thus, Punjabi farmers see the day after Lohri (Maghi) as the financial New Year.
Rewri and groundnuts, anyone?
As anyone who has ever celebrated the festival in full fervour around the bonfire would tell you--gur rewri, peanuts and popcorns are the three edibles associated with this festival. Besides these, in Punjab's villages, it is a tradition to eat gajjak, sarson da saag and makki di roti on the day of Lohri. It is also traditional to eat 'til rice'--sweet rice made with jaggery (gur) and sesame seeds.
The logic behind consuming these food items is--the general time to sow sugarcane is January to March, and the harvesting period is between December and March. The other important food item of Lohri is radish, which can be harvested between October and January.
Punjabi folklore
If you haven't heard Punjabi women go around the fire singing "Sunder mundriye ho!", you clearly haven't had the chance to visit Punjab around Lohri.
The folklore--Sunder Mundriye--is actually the tale of a man called Dulla Bhatti, who is said to have lived in Punjab during the reign of Mughal Emperor Akbar. Being quite the 'Robin Hood' back in the day, Dulla Bhatti used to supposedly steal from the rich, and rescue poor Punjabi girls being taken forcibly to be sold in slave markets. He then went on to arrange their marriages to boys of the village, and provided them with dowries (from the stolen money). Amongst these girls were Sundri and Mundri, who have now come to be associated with Punjab's folklore, Sunder Mundriye.
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