Lohri 2020

LOHRI CELEBRATION

Date: 13^th January 2020

Lohri is a Punjabi festival which is celebrated every year on 13^th January. Lohri is celebrated to mark the end of peak winter and is traditionally associated with the harvest of the Rabi crops. The traditional time to harvest sugarcane crops is January, therefore, Lohri is seen by some to be a harvest festival. Punjabi farmers thus see the day after Lohri (Maghi) as the financial New Year. During Lohri, Punjabi women go around the fire singing “Sunder mundriye ho!” The Folklore Sunder Mundriye is the tale of a man called Dulla Bhatti, who is said to have lived in Punjab during the reign of Mughal Emperor Akbar. Being quite the ‘Robin Hood’ back in the day, Dulla Bhatti used to supposedly steal from the rich, and rescue poor Punjabi girls being taken forcibly to be sold in slave markets. He then went on to arrange their marriages to boys of the village and provided them with dowries (from the stolen money). Amongst these girls were Sundri and Mundri, who have now come to be associated with Punjab’s folklore, Sunder Mundriye.

LOHRI CELEBRATION AT IBA

Lohri is also celebrated every year in Indus Business Academy. This year, YMCC, the committee that organises cultural events at IBA, advised few of the students who were Gursewak Singh, Tanya Alexander and Vishakha Singh of batch 19-21 to use the idea of inviting every faculty and staff member personally for the event by going to their respective cabins and performing a 30 seconds Lohri Invitation song “Sundar Mundriye Ho.”

This was something unique and was propagated for the very first time in college. It was happily performed by the students and was appreciated by every faculty and staff member too. Students also ended up collecting some amount that was contributed by the faculty and staff members. The amount was used to buy Groundnuts, Rewri, and other sweets that were distributed at the end of the event to the students and faculty members present during the event.

The event started at 10pm, in front of Santripti wherein students of batch 18-20 and 19-21 actively participated. Students were asked to wear ethnic clothes that made the event more joyous. A ritual of the bonfire was also organised by the YMCC committee, and large speakers were set up that played Lohri songs initially, and later on Punjabi songs to which students danced and performed Bhangra. During the bonfire, students walked around it and threw Groundnuts and rewri into it. This practice is also one of the rituals followed by Punjabis during the Lohri celebration. Also, Santripti (Mess of Indus Business Academy) prepared Punjabi food that gave an additional element of happiness to the event.

In the end, everyone enjoyed this joyful festival, and it ended by 11:30 pm with happy faces of students that were seen substantiated the level up to which students enjoyed the festival. It was an amazing experience for especially the Punjabis on campus, living far away from Punjab, who enjoyed the festival, and it certainly gave them the feeling of “Home far away from Home,” the motto that IBA follows.

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Lohri 2020