Kaipochhe!!!

Today is Makar Sankranti, and people in almost all parts of India are celebrating the transition of the Sun into Capricorn in its celestial journey. This day, which is supposed to mark the beginning of the harvest season in rural India is celebrated as Lohri in Punjab (though a day earlier), Pongal in Tamil Nadu and Makar Sankranti in other parts of India, like Maharashtra, West Bengal and Gujarat.

Each part of the country has its own rituals associated with this festival. So while this morning, I came across several status messages on friends' FB homepages saying "Til gul ghya, god god bola", roughly translated from Marathi as "Eat tilgul (a traditional sweet made of sesame seeds and jaggery) and speak well (sweet/ good?) (of others)", some others were missing the festive atmosphere seen in their hometown as the entire city gears up for a day of kite flying and meeting friends and family.

The FB status of this other friend sparked off some wishful thinking of my own... how I wish I could be in Ahmedabad one of these Makar Sankrantis, if only to watch millions of kites take off and colour the sky a million shades of red, blue, green and which other colour have you...this image has been etched in my imagination after Gujarati culture and Makar Sankranti was made famous by Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam, and more particularly, by the song Kaipoche! which went on to become a chart topper for a significant length of time. Others may of course remember the song because of the orange pants worn by Salman Khan in the song...

Psst....as an aside, whoever wears orange pants??? On a more prosaic note, wouldn't people get to know if you repeated the said item of clothing 'cause it would be etched in people's memories for the longest time, if only because of the shock value it generates? Or maybe it is only me who is alarmed by the phenomenon of people willingly choosing to wear orange pants...   

And of course, when I read the Kite Runner, the thrill of flying a kite and the excitement involved became a palpable, living, breathing experience...the beauty with which the particular scene depicting the kite flying competition was depicted, and the way in which the scene was made the prelude for the turning point for the events in the book make this one of my all time favourite reads...but to get back to my mid day wishful thinking, I've decided, someday, I will certainly make a trip to Ahmedabad on Makar Sankranti to soak in the atmosphere associated with the cry "Kaipoche!"

But having grown up in a house where Makar Sankranti signified loads of goodies lovingly prepared by the Mother in keeping with the tradition of rice harvesting Bengal, what I really miss about today are the amazing sweets (collectively called puli pithey in Bangla)...

As per tradition in Bengal, Makar Sankranti marked the first day of the winter harvest, and agrarians long ago would, on this day, make various steamed and fried sweets from the freshly harvested rice and offer it to the gods as thanksgiving for a good and bountiful harvest. Though the reason behind preparation of the mouthwatering delicacies has long passed into oblivion, food loving Bengal and Bengalis have still held on to the elaborate tradition of preparation of puli pithey...be it the steamed gokulpithe, or the dudh puli soaked in milk, or the yummy pati shapta, or the eternal favourite, the chushir payesh. And if you think that is too much of sweets for one to handle, there is the shoru chakli and the koraishutir kochuri/ chop, though, in my opinion, the last has little to do with the harvest offering and is an addition based on the food-loving Bangali's tastebud dictates. :)

Right through my childhood, Ma would start preparing these delicacies about two days in advance, and since these were supposed to be eaten only on Makar Sankranti and not prior, the two days to Makar Sankranti would be sheer torture, where one could only look at these sweets longingly and wait for the big day. Today, sitting in faraway Mumbai, how I wish I could get hold of at least some form of pithe...maybe I'll just ditch procastination and try my hand at it next year.

And for this year, maybe I'll cheat on my self imposed diet just for today and head to Sweet Bengal :)