Makar Sankranti 2024: India celebrates harvest festival under various names

It’s that time of the year when flamboyant kites fight for supremacy in the clear winter sky, when the sweet smell of puddings made with freshly-harvested rice and sugarcane fill the air, and fairs with merchandise from far and wide make themselves at home on grounds and river banks of small towns.

Dedicated to the worship of the Sun God, the festival of Makar Sankranti or Maghi is celebrated with fanfare across the country, even though each region has a special name for the festival and rituals tailored to its culture and traditions.

The festival which is usually celebrated on January 14 or 15 (of the Gregorian calendar), marks the entry of the Sun into the Capricorn or the Makara phase, giving it the name Makar Sankranti.

The day also officially marks the end of the winter season, and devotees paying obeisance to the Sun God can be seen thronging prominent ghats of river Ganga in the country to take a holy dip.

Let’s take a look how the festival is celebrated across India:

Makar Sankramana - Karnataka

Harvest festival or ‘Suggi Habba’ in Karnataka is celebrated in the state for three days. In the run up to the festival, one can see piles of sugarcane stacks, adorning local markets, with sugarcane being one of the key harvests of the season.

Besides sugarcane, freshly-harvested crops like paddy, hyacinth beans, and millets are used for customary rituals like ‘ellu beerodhu,’ ‘phala ereyuvudu’ and ‘kicchu haayisuvudu’.

The new rice is combined with moong dal to make ‘huggi anna’ in both sweet and savoury versions, a cousin of the ‘pongal’ in Tamil Nadu.

While the seasonal produce including vegetables like brinjal and ridge gourd are used to cook several delicacies before being offered to the Sun God, sugarcane is used to make ‘sakkare acchu’ or sugarcane candy.

Days ahead of the festival, the sugarcane is harvested and womenfolk get busy pulping out the juice and reducing it to shape it into sugar candy figurines.

Many households also practise the ‘Sankranthi Phala Ereyuvudu’ during which children are given goodies and blessed. As part of the ritual, children below 12 years are seated and a glass filled with coins, sugarcane pieces, ber fruits, ‘ellu-bella’ (a trail mix of copra, sesame seeds, friend gram and candied cumin seeds) and sugar candies are poured on their head, signifying that they will see prosperous times ahead.

Later, an aarti is performed on the children after which they are fed ‘ellu bella’, sugarcane, sweets and ‘huggi anna’. The items showered on them earlier are donated to the needy.

Maghi Saaji - Himachal Pradesh

Himachal Pradesh celebrates Makar Sankranti in the form of Maghi Saaji, alternatively called Magha Saaja.

Devout Hindus start the day by waking up in the wee hours and taking ceremonial dips in the hot water springs. It is followed by a puja early in the morning along with the burning of paza leaves.

Many people also throng the Tattapani Hot Springs in Mandi to take a holy dip in the water. They make an offering of cereals to the priests, in a ritual called ‘Tula Daan’ – here the size of the offering should match the weight of the person being offered the cereals.

On the day of the festival, people also visit their friends and relatives with food such as khichdi and chikki. Many people also make copious donations and charities to the poor on this day.

While the daytime is spent flying kites, visiting religious shrines and friends and families, people celebrate the evening by signing local folk songs and dancing.

Ghughutiya festival – Uttarakhand

The residents of the hilly state, especially those in the Kumaon region, celebrate the beginning of spring by welcoming migratory birds.

Apart from the traditional preparation of khichdi, mothers make deep-fried sweets known as ‘ghughute’ with flour and jaggery in different shapes and sizes. The sweets are then tied to the neck of the children in the house who set out to feed them to the crows.

It is a delightful sight to see children chanting ‘Kale kauwa kale, ghughuti mala khale’ (O black crow, eat the garland made of ghughute) and seeking blessings from the birds that oblige. Locals believe that the child who feeds the crows first is the luckiest.

Lohri - Punjab

Lohri is celebrated in Punjab a day before Maghi, the regional name of Makar Sankranti in Punjab, Haryana, Jammu and Himachal Pradesh. The day is an official holiday in Punjab.

In many parts of the state, children go door to door in the day singing songs and are treated to sweets and savories by hosts. Children come home with spoils like rock sugar, jaggery, peanuts, popcorn and sesame seeds, which is distributed among the group in the evening at celebration time.

In the evening, families and communities celebrate the festival by lighting a huge bonfire. It is a tradition to toss jaggery, sesame seeds and rewdis in the fire and sing and dance around it. People come dressed to the festival in sparkling traditional attires and sing Punjabi folk songs and dance to the beats of Bhangra and Gidda. The burning of food signifies burning of the old year and starting afresh.

With Lohri primarily being a festival close to the farmers, the traditional dinner served in Punjabi houses on the occasion is ‘Makke di Roti’ (rotis made of maize flour) and ‘Sarson da Saag; (mustard greens), both being winter produce.

Makara Sankranti - Odisha

Odias celebrate the festival by making an offering of ‘Makara Chaula’ (a pudding-like mix of rice, banana, milk, curd, jaggery, and cottage cheese) to the gods.

Many people across the state start the day by taking a holy dip in ponds and rivers and paying obeisance to the gods. Special rituals are carried out in the Jagannath Temple in Puri on the occasion, while Makara Mela (fairs) are organised in prominent pilgrimage sites like Cuttack’s Dhabaleswar, Hatakeshwar at Atri (Khordha), and the Makara Muni temple in Balasore.

A variety of ‘pithas’ (sweet rice cakes), ‘muan’ (sweet confectionery made of puffed rice or puffed paddy) and traditional sweets are also offered to deities on the occasion.

Sankrant - Rajasthan

Sankrant or Sankranti is a major festival in Rajasthan. People host ‘Sankrant Bhoj’ on the occasion, during which they invite friends and family to a feast on special festive meals.

On the occasion, special Rajasthani delicacies and sweetmeats like gajak, ghevar, pheeni, til-laddoo and puwa are made in households.

With the festival being synonymous with kites, several cities organize kite festivals and competitions on the day of Makar Sankranti.

On the day, Rajasthani women also observe a ritual in which they give household objects to 13 married women.

Children spend the entire day on rooftops, flying colourful kites, competing against one another and hollering in joy when they manage to snip their opponent’s kite. Jaipur hosts a three-day international kite festival every year starting January 14 to give wings to kite-flying enthusiasts.

Pongal - Tamil Nadu

The three-day harvest festival celebrated in the southern state of Tamil Nadu is named after the traditional dish by the same name (literally meaning “to boil, overflow”) that is made from freshly-harvested rice, boiled in milk and jaggery.

Just like other parts of the country, houses are cleaned and decorated with banana and mango leaves, while the courtyards and entrances are painted with traditional kolam patterns. People wear festive clothes and feast on the three days of the festival.

On Bhogi Pongal, the first day of the festival, people collect old belongings and burn them in a bonfire, signifying the end of an old life and the beginning of a fresh start.

On the second day of the festival, also called Surya Pongal, dedicated to the Sun God, new rice along with milk and jaggery is cooked in an earthen pot. As part of the rituals, the porridge is cooked until it overflows and at this moment a conch is blown to signify the wish to achieve greater fortunes in the new year. The pot, considered sacrosanct, is decorated with flowers, turmeric plants while sugarcane stalks flank it in the open kitchen. The Pongal is then offered to the Sun God.

The Mattu Pongal, or the day of the festival, is dedicated to cattle. On this day, cattle are given a ritual bath and their horns are polished before being adorned with flowers and garlands. The Pongal cooked on that day is first offered to the gods, and fed to the cattle after the family enjoys it.

Bihu - Assam

Also called Magh Bihu, the festival marks the end of the harvest season in Assam and is celebrated by feasting and bonfires.

On the eve of Magh Bihu, also called Uruka, delicacies like pithas and traditional sweets are made for the festival. In the night, a Bhuj or feast is organised where people eat, drink homemade beer and make merry. Usually huts made of bamboo, leaves and thatch called Bhelaghar are made where the feasting takes place at night.

On the day of the festival, people wake up at the crack of dawn and take a bath to participate in a post-harvest ceremony called Meji in which bonfires are lit in the fields. People circle around these bonfires and pray to their ancestral gods. Offerings of chicken, rice cakes, rice beer, pitha, chira, akhoi, curd and other food are made to the gods during the ritual.

A part of the ritual is to burn the Bhelaghar after which people have a special preparation known as Mah-Karai, a mixture of rice and black gram.