On Friday, January 14, 2022, the sun commenced its stolid journey of transition into the House of Capricorn. The almanac informed us of this northward trajectory that coincided, happily, with an explosion of festivals across the subcontinent and beyond as the day on which the farmer gratefully straightened hair back to allow herself a smile and throw a prayer to the laden sky.
For, Makara Sankranti commemorates a milestone in a personal journey with the soil under her feet that was inaugurated in November with the rabi season, when crops such as barley, gram, mustard and wheat were sown and nurtured in the winter months and which were now left to mature and fill out over the passing days.
The harvest of the spring season shall be upon us in a matter of weeks, but for just one day the people of the land rested against the plough to cast their mind back over the months of labor and gathered to celebrate the magic of life and the impending bounty.
Makara Sankranti, as it is known across the greater surface of the subcontinent; Pongal in the ancient and complex tongue of the Tamil nation; Lohri of rustic Haryana and Punjab; Uttarayan of the people of Western India; Pousha Sankranti of the Bengali nation; Magh Bihu in culturally-conscious and independent-minded Assam; Maaghe Sankrant in the landlocked Himalayan remoteness of Nepal; the pleasingly phonetic similarity of Songkran, as it is known in Thailand; Thingyan in Myanmar, a land steeped in culture and forgotten by the world, dragged back in time by a government that blatantly mocks the global progress of humanity; and Mohan Songkran in surprising Cambodia, playing host to the towering reminders of the civilization of the sub-continent that once was.
The weather in our corner of the Third World appears to increasingly imitate that of the Northern Hemisphere. For sheer gray wetness, we competed admirably at the beginning of the New Year when, day after day, an overcast sky transformed the day into the hues of an extended evening.
The twilight-like darkness of the waking hours was further underscored by the pitter-patter of a steady rain. So steady and constant, in fact, as to frequently dash any ambitions of not only the cherished morning walk but also the much hoped -- for perambulation in the later hours of the day. The desire to undertake anything strenuous is instantly lost by the inadvertent glance out of the window.
There is something to be said about the drive that distinguishes us from other living organisms that must, however, be sustained, through hell or high water, by the type of dedication displayed by the indefatigable sons of the soil.
New Year is long gone. But it is still biting cold or, at least, seems so for us shivering and miserable specimens accustomed to inhabiting the warmer climes associated with the middle of the globe. The pale sun, when it is permitted to reveal itself, is unconvincingly stenciled against a gray sky whose bleakness is accentuated by a receding shade of pale blue.
The semi-sprint of the morning walk, perversely, is launched a little earlier with each passing day, as if the weather of the mid-morning is not sufficiently inhospitable and daunting. And the column of individuals who straggle, mute and zombie-like past the main gate and into the complex, is testimony to this discomfort.
Some are scantily clad, others without socks, and all peer through the mere slits remaining in faces buried in layer upon layer of muffler and scarf. We South Asians are simply not physically and mentally equipped for the onset of the colder months. The Mediterranean blood that flows in our veins breeds a near-fatal delusion that there is no such thing as cold, that it is ephemeral at worst, and that the sun shall scorch us faithfully and without fail for every day of the year.
We refuse to heed the warnings of the continuously playful breeze in the few weeks of October, and ostrich-like continue along our stubborn ways, a foolish momentum that prevents us from registering that the falling leaves of autumn can only, inevitably, inexorably, portend the journey into the weeks of unpleasant and wet cold.
It strikes one as ironic that a rare festival dedicated to the Apollo of the East should be cloaked in gray clouds rather than be a bright celebration of its warm rays. But time is on our side, and we are already within the ambit of the next constellation, a milestone which brings us another day closer to the familiar warmth. And what better example of forbearance than that of the patience of nature around us, as the serried ranks of flowers wait, silently, slightly bowed, for the sun to burst through the gray canopy before they once again lift their faces in exultation to the life-giver.
The festival is a moment in time to mark the progression of the seasons, crucially, in the direction of the life-giving warmth. And that, dear reader, apart from its astonishing universality, is the essence of the phenomenon of Makara Sankranti.
Sumit Basu is a freelance writer based in India.
