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.

Identifying our Victims

Summer was an extended break, two months of idyll and then some more :) Getting back to the blinking cursor is that much harder, sigh! Following the news over the last month has been overwhelming - I am not sure I should encourage li'l M to read the headlines, they're terribly depressing: the mudslides in China, the floods in Pakistan, the Chilean miners, the hostage crisis in Manila...

Fin de siecle, the philosopher within would opine but Mirza Ghalib has something else to say. Read on to find out...

Identifying our victims

I remember the upturned boats strewn like boulders in the dusty yard of the Sessions Court in my hometown. They appeared to be an anomaly in the hot and dry plain where monsoon arrived in August after having mostly spent itself. Perplexed, I questioned my mother. For times of flood, she replied. Flood? I was eight years old and completely baffled by the prospect of water surging through our arid city, converting roads to canals. And yet, floods are integral to the story of Punjab – literally, the land of five rivers. Fed by Himalayan glaciers the rivers course through the plains, swelling in monsoon months and diminishing in winter. The ancient civilization of Indus Valley owes its origins to the fertile basin created by these rivers in the western part of the Indian subcontinent.

During the partition of British-ruled India into Muslim Pakistan and secular India, the five rivers of Punjab were apportioned between the two new nations – in a newly communal land even water was religiously denominated. Partition saw one of the largest migrations in history as nearly 15 million people moved borders for the relative safety of their religious majority. Punjab accounted for a bulk of the population exchange. I grew up in a border town in Indian East Punjab, whose boundary with Pakistani West Punjab was marked by the Sutlej river, the longest of the five rivers. Expectedly, I was acquainted with stories of Partition and the communal riots that followed in its wake. As people trudged east and west through the sunbaked plains of Punjab in summer, the monsoon failed. Water level fell so low that in places the dry riverbed became a road of sorts. Historians estimate that in the violence that occurred across borders nearly one million lives were lost. Partition chronicles talk about dried blood that streaked deserted fields and dusty trails. And then, inexplicably, the rivers swelled and flooded the plains across Punjab, heedless of borders. It added to the misery of a ravaged people but the sins of the land had to be washed off, my grandmother maintained.    

In my years of growing up I never witnessed a flood, and the boats lay in disuse as grass grew around them. In 1988 the town was deluged but I was in the safety of a hostel in a distant city. When I called home the house was filled with the chatter of relatives and friends who had sought refuge – apparently we were lucky to be situated on a relatively higher plain.

Now with the floods in Pakistan Punjab I have been following up with my mother from Hong Kong on the situation in our town. The low-lying villages have been evacuated, paddy and cotton fields have been swamped but the town center is safe, thus far.

Recently we were discussing current news with friends when I mentioned the Pakistan flood situation. One of them grinned, and teasingly said, “Your country”. This is an old buddy and I know what he is alluding to – scientists call it ‘the identifiable victim effect’. According to Paul Slovic our sympathy is directly linked to the extent to which we identify with the victim. Figures leave us cold, and thinking statistically about a disaster – number of dead, extent of damage, cubic meters of floodwater – diminishes our sympathy. However, people often become entranced by specific, identifiable victims – the plight of Ali Abbas, a boy wounded in the Iraq conflict, captivated the European media resulting in 275000 GBP raised for his medical care.

We live in a global world. In the past week I have followed the plight of the Chilean miners, the Hong Kong tourists taken hostage in Manila, the mudslides in China, the floods in Pakistan. In an interconnected world we find ourselves aware and yet disconnected. Perhaps it is the surfeit of news, or the overwhelming numbers or the lack of rootedness, but this is not the malaise of a new century. Mirza Ghalib, the great Urdu poet of the nineteenth century, commented on the nature of humanity: it is difficult for things to be easy, to be human is not a presumption to being a man.

Daily charities ask for our donations – for the welfare of third world children, for victims of natural disasters, for the war-affected, for fighting disease. How are we to respond? With less thought. Research shows that deliberation in such cases leads to callousness. The mighty rivers do not ruminate over borders and boundaries, nor does the earth when it is quaking or sliding. Go with the specific victim that appeals to your sense of humanity, and give.