Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Festivals week




http://www.thanksgiving-day.org/makar-sankranti.html
photopage.wordpress.com

--pongal picture

This is the week of festivities....LOHRI,PONGAL,SANKARANTI, SAKAT all together. basically all these festival celebrate the harvest.
LOHRI is celebrated on 13th. I know this much about it only.......First Lohri of any bride is very special, she is given lot of gifts,and its celebrated with lot of joy, with bonfire, rewri, peanuts etc.
Pongal....Yesterday i asked my neighbours what you do on this day, she told me that they take sugar cane, haldi and all that and worship Sun god and make few delicacies like sweet pongal etc.
My daughter makes Pachdi...mixture of five thing..sweet,sour,bitter..all the taste and it symbolises that one must face all the things in life with the equanimity.
From this day starts SHUKL Paksh and so the season of Haldi kumkum in Maharashtra,--I wrote the details here.SANKRANTI----I know a little about it, as its celebrated in our family.I remember my childhood, when on this day my mother used to ask us not to eat anything without मिन्सिंग ..its giving out something..on this day she will get fresh Gazak and put it in a plate one for each of us with some money and we shall give it. Then after the first year of marriage, on this day girl/s parents send all the clothes and sweets for inlaws.I still remember that my chacha's inlaws used to send so much of special sweets on this day..like varieties of laddoos, in those day sankaranti laddoos used to be very big ones ,like something of 250 gm each, and then in 5 laddoes one silver coin would be put inside in a small box..one in each. Now I know that most of the young girls reading it will question..why should a girl's parents only do something:).........I always told my daughter not to interfere in what i am giving and always take pride in whatever i do, and the same I am writing here...these are traditions..made to make the relationships better, may be in the earlier days they thought that their daughter lives with the other family, so they wanted to please the family..but now.a.days, I think that if we can afford..though this is also very subjective, because everybody does everything, only the scale or the range varies,we must follow the traditions, because if we start questioning everything, then we shall loose all the traditions and celebration will mean only either making food or eating outside and then only we will miss all this. These small traditions dont make any difference to even inlaws...as most of the time gifts are hardly used, they just make them happy that somebody gives them respect.yes , these things should be out of choice only, none should be compelled to do it, but at the same time one should not abolish all the systems... and today's generation is so kind hearted and generous in donations and other things, then why this old mindset of being against inlaws...when everything is changing...and they want everybody to change all the perspectives, I would say..first change yourself and remove this negative perception of inlaws...think of them as your own and once you start think REALLY that way, you would never have these questions...फ़िर सब अपने होंगे तो कहीं कुछ बुरा नही लगेगा,कौन दे रहा हा कौन ले रहा हा, सभी तो अपने हैं.when in all other relationships, nobody questions any give and take, why this negative feeling ward inlaws....see here everybody has the same relationships somewhere------I am a mother and MIL both,,, and personally i feel lot of happiness while doing everything, and feel bad when for some reason I can do anything. When I love my daughter so much , I care for her inlaws also who have given her respect and love in their family, for that i am eternally indebted to them.This is my take on life:)
SAKAT This is Ganesh Chaturthi and celebrated as sakat for us this month and this year it falls on sakranti day.We keep fast, prepare some sesame delicacies like TILKUT, Laddo,..receipe here take out Baayana..give it to our MIL, then worship the moon at night and then have the dinner.
WISHING YOU ALL A VERY HAPPY LOHRI,PONGAL AND SANKRANTI !

17 comments:

aneri_masi said...

That is a lot of information on a lot of festivals, RenuDi.

I don't know a whole lot about why, but we used to have this custom on "haldi-kumkum" in Maharashtra. Married women would be invited home, and the hostess would put haldi and kumkum on their forehead and give them a small gift. Also, we used to eat "tilgul" which was sort of like tilkut.

In Gujarat and Rajasthan, it is kite flying season :) Don't quite know the significance though.

Renu said...

Aneri_masi: :) Your comment reminded me of haldi kumkum, I had written earlier about it, now I have added in this post:) thanks for reminding me.
See if we think..everything is very logical...we eat TilGUD..both good for us in winter, plus GUD os freshly made now, all our festivals are celebration of season,may be kite fflying because the weathe ris pleasant to stay outside, then sky is clear:)

Spontaneous Mini said...

Nice one on festivities.
Also reminds me that last Diwali and Id fell on the same day.

Shukla paksh reminds me of our wedding dates being set according to them too.

Anonymous said...

Wish u the same :)
I love the concept of LOHRI
The way its shown in films :)

And even v celebrate SANKRANTI in a big way..til ladoo and all :P

Anonymous said...

yes its pongal in tamilnadu..

happy festive season

Maddy said...

Happy Pongal to you and your family.

Nice write up of your stand on tradition( in Sankaranti)

DeeplyDip said...

many wishes to you too :)
even my mom used to make us donate rice, dal, til, gajak, money etc before eating anything...but here i forget this most of the time. Now that you have reminded me, I will take out the things in any case...

SMRITI said...

nice..a lot of info :)

I remember only one tradition in Sankranti...fly kites and eat Til Ke Laddu...oh thats two....Too much jaggery in the til ka laddu went into my head today :P

Happy Sankranti everyone :)

OG said...

Happy Pongal to you :)

sansmerci said...

happy pongal renu :)

SR said...

Happy Sankranti to you!

Pixie said...

Happy LOHRI,PONGAL AND SANKRANTI to you and your family too!
Loads of info about the festivals... thank you for sharing them :)

Smriti said...

That's a very informative post Ma :) and thanks for linking my recipe!

My pongal turned out pretty good!

Piper .. said...

I remember celebrating Lohri in college - the best part being the bonfire :-)) Ofcourse we dont celebrate it as Lohri in bengal or bihar. But we do celebrate sankranti. This time I so wanned to make "pati shapta" - a special kind of sweet. But i got insanely busy with some important stuff :( next time perhaps..
Happy sankranti to you too Renu!

Renu said...

SPONTANEOUS MINI: yes, every auspicious function is organised in Shukl paksh only:).

SWATS: yeah Bollywood has promoted north Indian traditions very well:)
what did u eat on Sankranti?

Chriz: The type of lighting I saw yesterdy on Govt. buildings and on marina beach..it was beautiful and amazing.

Maddy: i am so thankful to you, atleast one person gave importance to that part. i have always felt that our youngsters are a confused lot:)

Deeplydip: :), did u take out something? These things are always good in some way or other.

SMRITI: taht shows that Til is the most common and popular ingredient in Sankaranti:), I love the laddos, with jaggery also, but more the ones with Khoya:)

Ajit: Thanx:)

Sansmerci: Thanx:) and BTW what did u do? , it will be your last pongal before marriage?

SR: Thanx:)

PIXIE: Thanks Pixie:)

Smriti: Thank u guria:).

Piper: In India, there are so many things avaialble in the market, sometimes there is no need to even make, one can bring it:)

Reflections said...

Hope U had a wonderful time celebrating the festivals....here in Dubai we can hardly make out whether it is a festival or not. Do u know they dont even have a holiday for christmas:-(
....if u r a christian U can take an off but no general holiday as such.

Seriously...miss India so much. And ur writing on traditions are really nice....u know I feel exactly the same....just I think whoever it is should do these customs within their capapcity or limit.

Renu said...

Reflections; nancy its always different, even if u r in a different state in India...here in Chennai..the holiday is for Choti Diwali, not on the day we celebrate in north.
In MP holi was celebrated on a different day than us...so may be I am quite used to it now:)
And i have always felt that traditons are good even dowry is not a bad thing, if it is done on ur own, all these tbhings took a bad name because of few people who forced everything, I wanted to write a post on this..will do so sometimne:)

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