Lohri revellers feast on 'gajak' and 'revri'

City Punjabis celebrated the traditional festival of lohri with all-night revelry at many places in the city, including Bandra, Juhu, Sher-E-Punjab Colony, Malad, Lokhandwala and Versova. 

Known folk singers and dancers from Punjab and Delhi were especially invited to regale audiences in Mumbai.

Lohri is celebrated every year in north India with great gusto and aplomb, marking the end of the harsh winter and the beginning of basant (spring). “Ayi basant, palla udant” chant people, meaning spring is here and winter has bid goodbye.

In the north, the traditional months of Katta, Poh and Magh (December, January and February) are always very cold, and the only way of keeping warm is to sit around a bonfire. And over the years, this has become a tradition.

Lohri coincides with Pongal in Tamil Nadu, Magha Bihu in Assam and Tai Pongal in Kerala. Revellers lit a bonfire, sang traditional songs and danced through the night while offering peanuts, popcorn and sweets made of sesame — gajak and revri — to propitiate the fire, a symbol of the sun god.

In Punjab and Haryana, the celebrations invoked the legend of Dulla Bhatti, who robbed the rich and distributed the spoils among the poor during the Mughal rule. Dulla, who enjoyed Robin Hood-like status in his day, belonged to the Bhatti Rajput community.

During one of his forays into his area of operation, Dulla found a poor orphaned girl and adopted her as his daughter. Years later, he got her married off; an act that earned him more respect and acceptability among his ilk.