Makar Sankranti, India

Makar Sankranti is a Hindu festival mostly celebrated on 14th of January every year. This festival is celebrated all over India but in some part it is celebrated as Pongal and in some part as Lohri. Makar sankranti is the festival of kites. In Gujarat Makar Sankranti is well known as Uttarayan. People of Gujarat keenly await this festival to pay oblation to the Sun by flying colourful kites all over the skyline. Makar Sankranti commemorates the beginning of the harvest season. Astrologically, on this day the Sun enters the Capricorn constellation. In Hindu religion Sun is regarded as Pratyaksha-Brahman-the manifest God who symbolizes, the one, non-dual, self-effulgent, glorious divinity blessing one and all tirelessly. This festival gives a message that one should gradually begin to nurture transparency, knowledge, and awareness, as the Sun does from this day and perform his duties without execrating any return. On this very day, a wounded Bhishma Pitamah chose to linger and leave his body, so that he can attain heavenly abode.

On this day sun ends its southward journey at the Tropic of Capricorn, and starts moving northward towards the Tropic of Cancer. Relating to the mythology, God remind their children to wake up and to move towards lights and never to darkness-’Tamso Ma Jyotir Gamaya’ .