Uttarayan / Makar Sankranti

Kite festival of India

 

Originally, this was a festival linked to the agrarian community, who used the kite flying to predict the weather for planting spring crops.   Kites were flown to determine the prevailing wind / weather conditions.   Farmers used their extensive experience to determine type of crops that would do best for spring harvest under such weather conditions.

Now, kite flying has more to do with competition than crops.  Kites of all shapes and colours dance in the sky during January every year.  In Gujarat, and many other Northern states, kite flyers take great pride in "cutting" the kites of other flyers.  The strings used to fly the kites are coated with powdered glass to make it easier to "cut" the opponents kites.

Later, the kite festival was associated with Bhishma, grandsire and hero of the Mahabharat war.  The grandsire was mortally wounded in the great battle, but, through his yogic abilities, managed to delay the moment of death till the Sun entered the constellation of Capricorn.  He wishes his soul to make its way back to the regions of the Vasus, beyond the constellation of Capricorn.

 

In the south, the festival is celebrated as Pongal.   It is dedicated to the Sun and gods of nature that bring good harvests.  Rice, spiced and sweetened with cane sugar (gaud) is cooked in the courtyard and the pot is allowed to "boil over".  Family members visit each other and presents are exchanged. 

 

Weather predicting is also used in the pre monsoon festival of Ashadhi-beej to check the moisture in the atmosphere to help predict which crop would do best in the monsoon planting season so as to get the best autumn crop.  Sample seeds of crops to be planted are weighed and left in the temple's inner sanctum for a week or so, before being reweighed to see how much moisture they have absorbed from the atmosphere.  This helps determine how much moisture there is in the air, giving an indication of what the weather will be like in the next few weeks.  Depending on how much rain can be predicted, the farmers can decide which crops will do best in the coming season.

© Bhagwat Shah

 

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