सनातन पुस्तकालय Sanatan Cultural Library

Lohri is Punjab's answer to the longest stretch of winter: on the eve of Makar Sankranti, when the sun stands ready to turn north, families and whole neighbourhoods circle a bonfire, throw til, rewri, gajak, peanuts and popcorn into the flames as offerings, and sing. The fire is thanksgiving for the winter harvest — sugarcane pressed to fresh gur, mustard greens in the fields — and a plea carried up with the sesame: "aadar aaye dilather jaye" — may honour come and poverty leave. It is a folk festival more than a scriptural one, which is exactly its charm: Lohri belongs to the fields, the family and the fire, and Hindu and Sikh Punjab keep it identically.

Lohri's anthem is a ballad. "Sundar mundriye, ho!" tells of Dulla Bhatti, the Mughal-era Punjabi outlaw who robbed the rich, rescued girls being taken for sale, arranged their weddings as a father would and gave them dowries from his plunder — Punjab's own Robin Hood, remembered every January by children who sing his song door to door and collect Lohri treats in return, teasing the stingy houses in verse. And Lohri keeps its warmest tradition for beginnings: a household's first Lohri after a wedding, or after a child's birth, is celebrated on a grand scale — the new bride or the new baby honoured at the fire, dressed in their best, with the whole community invited to dance bhangra and giddha around the flames. The exact Ottawa date, pinned to Makar Sankranti's eve, is in the Festivals & Dates list on this page.

A January bonfire is a serious proposition in Ottawa — and that is precisely why Lohri lands so well here: the festival was engineered for exactly this weather. Backyard fire pits (within City of Ottawa open-air fire rules — check the bylaw and the day's conditions) host family Lohris with til, rewri and peanuts from the Indian grocer, who stock Lohri goods from early January; community organizations and banquet halls host the larger dhol-and-bhangra evenings, especially for families celebrating a first Lohri. Where a real fire isn't possible, the gathering matters more than the flame — the song, the sesame sweets shared, and the sense of winter's back breaking. Makar Sankranti follows at dawn: our page for it covers the til-gud and khichdi traditions that complete the pair.