Tomorrow marks the end of 29-day Pous, the Bengali calendar month. Also called Pous Sankranti, it’ll be a day when mothers and grandmothers will prepare homemade sweets to everyone’s delight. Most common delicacies include patisapta, dudh pithe and payesh. And they taste so good that even the most diehard sweet-hater will find it difficult to give them a miss.
Pous Sankranti it is when thousands of pilgrims from far-flung places will take holy dip at Gangasagar, the confluence of Ganges (Hooghly river) and Bay of Bengal, very early in the morning before heading off to Kapilmunir Mandir to offer prayers to the deity.
Gangasagar Mela is an important annual pilgrimage, and coming close on the heels of Kumbh Mela at Sangam in Allahabad, it has somewhat lesser attendance by pilgrims this year. [Below are 2 snaps of holy Ganges taken by my teenaged son Pintu at Haridwar and Laxmanjhula (Rishikesh) early this month].
Pous Sankranti here is also the day when Pongal (harvest festival) is celebrated allover South India (Jan 15 this year) and Magh Bihu is celebrated in Assam. Both are festivals of joy that mark the end of harvest season with ‘granaries being full to the brim’. Makar Sankranti is also observed in Gujarat (Uttrayan) where people fly kites, and in Punjab as Lohri.
Kolkata Musing wishes its readers a happy Makar Sankranti. Let everyone’s ‘granary’ overflow with happiness and prosperity.
Below are 3 fantastic images taken at Gangasagar Mela. All are copyrighted with photojournalist, Achim Pohl, ©Achim Pohl.
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