Of Lohri and its good ole Robin Hood

Happy Lohri folks! On the occasion of my bestest most favourite festival, am reposting an old Lohri post - enjoy with some nutty gachak :)


There are few pleasures in life that can compare with huddling around a bonfire on a chilly winter’s evening, munching on sesame seed-coated jaggery sweets, singing hoary songs, warming hands above the flames and testing how close the toe can really get to the burning logs without singeing one's socks!

That was how it seemed to me as a child, and now, twice-removed in time and space, the remembered pleasure still holds.

It arrived yearly on Lohri and now that I live outside Punjab its one festival I miss sorely. Lohri is all about bonfire bonhomie, gachak and gup, mungfali and mazaak. The day would start with a round of the neighbours for gathering out trove of treats for which we would lustily render Dullah Bhatti. Most of us kids knew the tune and some garbled lyrics and yet we delivered a virtuoso rendition for we ended up with full bags! The evening’s bonfire was followed by saag and makki roti – a meal I have always been partial to, unlike my brother with his unavoury comparisons of mustard greens with offal. Now that I am a mother I realize it is also a practical device for bringing children, high on all those sweets, down to earth.

The best Lohri was one where we were celebrating a new wedding or a first-born since such an occasion would warrant some serious singers in the gathering. Jugni was a perennial favourite, especially as it lends itself to raucous chorus from those in the gathering who don’t possess a blessed set of vocal chords. I remember one Lohri where an uncle gifted with a silvery voice and reputed for his rendition of Heer got so carried away that he would not stop singing the high pitched mournful song that is usually reserved for occasions other than Lohri. In time the gathering was in tears, the men weeping into their drinks and it took a forceful grand aunt to hustle the teary men into shape when she rapped the dholi and got the Bhangra beat going. It was after all a celebration of a new bride’s first pregnancy and what were the men getting soulful about? 

Lohri marks the end of winter and the harvest of Rabi crop in Punjab. When we grow up in one place we take our traditions and customs for granted. I saw the harvested fields, the yards with blazing bonfires, the gathering of family and friends and I assimilated that it was a time of celebration, of being thankful, of Agni and Dullah Bhatti, and having a jolly good time in good ole Punjabi style.

But I have been out of Des long enough for my daughter to have grown up in Hong Kong – how then do I convey to her what Lohri is? Forced to articulate what is in my bones I turned to introspection, recollection, and meditation at that fount of omniscience, Google.

As I cohered my thoughts I learnt that Dullah Bhatti, that ubiquitous hero of our Lohri songs was quite a Robin Hood figure. I also gleaned a lesson on the secular fabric of Punjab. Bhatti was a Muslim who rescued a Hindu girl, adopted her and married her to a Hindu boy. Since there was no priest around to chant the hymns required to solemnize the marriage, Dullah lit a fire and composed an impromptu song. Sunder mundriye, tera kaun vichara, Dullah Bhatti wala oye, Dulleh ne teeh viahi oye, ser shakar payi! The bride and groom took the mandatory rounds of the fire as Dullah rendered his self-composition where he spoke of marrying his daughter and gifting her a kilo of sugar!

I love the story. Of course there are several versions of this tale – take your pick – but what is integral to each telling is the secular, chivalrous and joyful character of its hero, an archetype the average Punjabi lionizes.

The reason we light the bonfire is not only because it kills the chill on a winter’s evening – practical! – but also on 13 January the sun begins its northward journey – uttarayan – and winter officially ends. The worship of Sun is intrinsically linked to the Indus Valley, a custom more ancient than the Rig Veda from which comes the Gayatri mantra, the revered verse in praise of the Sun.

Armed with a compelling narrative, I initiate my daughter into the varied charms of Lohri. I tell her about my experience of Lohri as a child, of Dullah Bhatti, the Indian Robin Hood, our Halloweeny tradition of gathering sweets minus the scary masks, the offering and subsequent sharing of gachak with the blazing Agni. Blithely I render Jugni as well in my not so melodious voice, and teach her the chorus. And since Lohri is a good day to ask for blessings, on our way back from my daughter’s horse riding lesson, we stop at the Gurudwara.

She tucks into the pershad greedily, has a question about the keertan – is it always sung or can it be recited – and we walk back home, she skipping ahead of me, helped no doubt by the rich sweet she has relished. I walk behind, her school bag on my shoulder as a crisp Hong Kong winter day is morphing into evening. I see the bonfire in my mind and smile, happy with our singular celebration of Lohri.

Of soldier-saints and French hijabs

Happy Vaisakhi folks!

For those of you unfamiliar with this festival, a primer. Vaisakhi, or Baisakhi, is a harvest festival celebrated in Punjab over the ages. It also marks the beginning of a new solar year, an event that is concomitantly marked across India in its various avatars: Ugadi in Karnataka, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Pohela Boishakh in Bengal, Navreh in Kashmir ...

Since a large number of Indians have switched from agrarian to urban lifestyle, the festival today has got reduced to a public holiday and a desultory greeting. Some folks, not all Sikhs, do venture forth to a Gurudwara, the Sikh place of worship, to celebrate. That is because Vaisakhi holds a special place in the Sikh faith.

In 1699, it was on this day that the tenth Guru of the Sikhs, Guru Gobind Singh, created a casteless community, the Khalsa or the pure. He prescribed five emblems for them. They were to wear their hair and beard unshorn (kes); carry a comb (kangha) in the hair to keep it tidy; wear a knee-length pair of breeches (kach) worn by soldiers of the times; wear a steel bracelet (kara) on their right wrist; and they were to be armed with a sabre (kirpan). The Guru, in turn, submitted to the Khalsa - each was beholden to the other, there was no superior in this relationship.

With that baptismal ceremony the Guru changed the complexion of the Sikh faith from the pacifist one initiated by Nanak to one of soldier-saints who would wield arms only in a righteous cause. The emblems were complimentary to the new vocation. Ascetics in India have a long tradition of unshorn hair while the other four emblems were drawn from soldiering.

Early eighteenth century was a time of turbulence in India: Mughal emperor Aurangzeb was a bigot who had overturned the relatively peaceful relationship with his subjects by imposing a tax on the infidels which was called jaziya. A young Gobind’s acquaintance, however, was more personal – as a nine-year-old he had witnessed his father’s execution by the Mughal emperor. The creation of the Khalsa was an attempt to fight religious persecution, to “take the broom of divine knowledge and sweep away the filth of timidity”.

A visit to the Gurudwara therefore is a time to reflect on the values of Khalsa and what they mean today. There is an interesting debate currently on in France where a ban on the hijab has become effective. In a twist of irony, in the land of liberte, egalite, fraternite, women are being told how to dress. The country that birthed that rallying cry has on previous occasions banned the Sikh turban as well.    

Which brings me to the central question of what it means to be a Sikh today, what Khalsa stands for in the current environment, and where the five K’s fit within the contemporary challenges.

Typically over the years there is one K – Kara, the steel bracelet – that Sikhs have adhered to, even as they’ve shed the others. While most Sikh men continue to be distinguished by their turbans, a steady number have shorn their hair. Suspicions cast on Sikhs post 9/11 have not helped – the Sikh diaspora has had to challenge assumptions that they’re Muslims. 

I remember the time when my younger brother cut his hair. He was studying medicine and my mother refused to talk to him for days. What surprised me, however, was my father’s reaction. He was a liberal, a scotch-imbibing secular, the type derided by fundamentalists who had become rather vocal in Punjab during a tumultuous period in the eighties. A criminal lawyer, he worked pro bono on the cases of young men accused of being militants and was simultaneously vociferous in his denunciation of Bhindranwale – a rabid preacher leading the Sikh communal charge.

Religion to him was incidental, and yet, I saw him distressed with my brother’s behaviour. What difference does it make, I quizzed him? He patted my head, his brown eyes mellow as he probed his carefully-trimmed beard: Faith comes to us via nurture and becomes nature. Which is why battling it so tough. My father never took scissors to his beard, I never though of cutting my hair … my son has gone a step further.

In the least, faith is a complicated thing, I learnt from my father. And as we tussle with its multiple strands in one lifetime, there are days when we need to be reminded of what it stood for when it started. Those values are the beacon – everything else comes second.

In the evening we’ll go the Gurudwara that is a short walk from our home. The low-slung blue-painted century-old house of worship will be strung with lights and the waft of karha parshad will snuff traffic fumes as we wait at the traffic signal across. My eight-year-old will relish the semolina halva and we’ll enjoy listening to the shabad. I’ll hope to catch one of my favourite prayers, Khalsa mero roop hai Khaas, which celebrates our essential humanity.

And as always I will ignore the framed portrait of Bhindranwale at its entrance. Friends have asked me what I feel about it. I have no truck with those who have declared him a martyr.

We have a Punjabi phrase – jey aapan donve rus gaye ta, manau kaun vey – oft used in a tiff, the idea being that both people cannot afford to sulk if the argument is to be resolved.

These are questions that the faithful must wrestle with and answer as the faith evolves. Meanwhile, in order to continue the debate one has to stay seated at the table.