Dil me tarang aur sabhi se apnapan
Zindagi me gud jaisa mithapan
Aao hokar saath hum udaaye patang
Aur bhar de chaaro or khushiyon ke rang
Makar Sankranti is a major harvest festival celebrated in India. Makara Sankranti commemorates the beginning of the harvest season and cessation of the northeast monsoon in South India. The movement of the Sun from one zodiac sign into another is called Sankranti and as the Sun moves into the Capricorn zodiac known as Makara in Sanskrit, this occasion is named as Makara Sankranti in the Indian context.
This festival has different regional names:
Makar Sankranti: Chhattisgarh, Goa, Odisha, Haryana, Bihar, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh,Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Bihar, and West Bengal
Pongal, Uzhavar Thirunal: Tamil Nadu
Uttarayan: Gujarat
Maghi: Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Punjab. The day before, people of Punjab celebrate Lohri.
Bhogali Bihu: Assam
Shishur Saenkraat: Kashmir Valley
Khichdi: Uttar Pradesh and western Bihar
Makara Sankramana: Karnataka
In other countries too(Napal, Tailand, Myanmar, Combodia, Sri Lanka) the day is celebrated but under different names and in different ways.
In Maharashtra on Makara Sankranti (मकर संक्रान्ति) day people exchange multicoloured halwa (sugar granules coated in sugar syrup) and til-gul laadoo (sweetmeats made from sesame seeds and jaggery. Check out the recipe here). While exchanging til-gul as tokens of goodwill people greet each other with the words "तिळगुळ घ्या, आणि गोड-गोड बोला / til-gul ghyaa, aani goad-goad bolaa" meaning ‘Accept this til-gul (sweet) and utter sweet words’. The underlying thought in the exchange of til-gul is to forget the past ill-feelings and hostilities and resolve to speak sweetly and remain friends. The importance of sesame seeds is it keeps body warm and provide good oil, which is needed as winter dried up the moisture from body.
Kite flying is an inevitable part of this festival. Kites are made of special light-weight paper and bamboo and are mostly rhombus shaped with central spine and a single bow. The string often contains abrasives to cut down other people's kites. When people cut any kites they used to yell with words like "kaypo chhe", "e lapet", "phirki vet phirki" and "lapet lapet" in Gujarati. People spend the whole day on their terrace, flying kites with music on and yummy goodies to munch on!
Sharing here our attempt at making kite when we were back in Sydney. Kiddo and me thoroughly loved out activity and the daddy too got involved in taking pics and posing with the kite J
Here are the step by step pictures:
material required:
a4 size paper for making kite
cello tape
straw
pen
circle punch (the one used for filing also works)
scissor
ribbon
string for holding the kite
Fold the paper into half and draw eyes on it
Mountain fold the center to create a nose of the kite.
Turn around the kite and stick the straw horizontally with the tape
Punch a hole on the top side of the nose and tie a string
Stick th ribbon tail on the back of the kite
tadaa..the kite is ready to soar!!
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