It felt like yesterday when I got the energy and time to make "serious" videos. One thing to be sure now, I am not cut out for this. Never was, never will be. It was a great hobby though for my era of being a full-time mom. Now that phase has passed for me officially, I won't be able to continue it.
This script below was for the last video I wanted to make. Well, I had a whole list of topics I wished to put my mind into, but only progressed to the unfinished "last video". Managed to write up the script in March 2021, but oh boy, making a video takes way much more time. I even recorded the parts with me in front of the camera, but putting clips together and adding audio to clips is the main work, that I could not accomplish, for the past 2 years.
Anyways, life can't stay the same, things are moving on for me regardlessly. Regardless of anything. And I'm satisfied with whatever I do. That is enough then, for that era to appear and eventually disappear, made a tiny mark in my life. All the videos still are there though lol, and I'm casually updating some new content anyway. India trip is up, I will for sure take clips and put them up!
Lol, Makar Sankranti is the celebration of beginning (of the year) :-)
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Makar Sankranti
[Hello everybody, it’s Momo here, today I am going to show you how my family celebrated the festival of Makar Sankranti.]
1 It was on January 14th this year, and the date is based on Hindu Calendar. But the interesting thing is, each year it falls on the same day on the Gregorian calendar - January 14th. So how come you say it follows the Hindu Calendar? If a festival is following Hindu traditional calendar, usually it falls on a different day on Gregorian calendar each year right? Because Hindu calendar is based on Lunar cycles, and the Gregorian calendar is based on Solar cycles.
2 Do you remember I explained it in one other video when I introduced Durga Puja: in Hindu calendar, it follows Lunar cycles, but every 32 to 33 months, 1 month is added to a year, to be 13 months a year. Because 12 Lunar cycles is 354 days, 1 Solar year is 365 days, adding an additional month is to adjust the difference between Lunar and Solar days, to ensure festivals and crop-related rituals fall in the appropriate season.
[So ya, after all, Hindu traditional calendars also follow Solar cycles, and this makes it very similar to the Gregorian calendar when it comes to the progress of the years.]
3 Most of Hindu festivals are based on Lunar positions, so the date of the festivals changes in the Gregorian calendar. But this one - Makar Sankranti - as one of the few Hindu festivals, is based on Solar positions. Therefore the date of Makar Sankranti always falls on the same date in the Gregorian calendar. Each year the exact same date - January 14th.
4 This day is the end of the month with the winter solstice and the start of longer days. According to my father-in-law, on January 14th, the sun rises more from the North side which means the weather is getting warmer. If you know how much Indians love warmth, you would understand why this day is extremely important to them. In Sanskrit, the Northward movement of the Sun is called Uttarayana, that’s why in some places in India, this festival is also called Uttarayana, such as states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Madhya Pradesh in India.
5 “Makar” is a legendary sea creature in Hinduism, it’s one of the 12 Rāshis in Hindu Astrology. Rāshis is equivalent to Zodiac and there are also 12 Rāshis in Hindu Astrology, and Makar is equivalent to Capricorn. “Sankranti” means transmigration of the Sun from one Rāshi (zodiac) to the next. Therefore Makar Sankranti means the day the Sun enters the Capricorn zodiac.
[It’s a very important festival in Indian culture actually, it’s celebrated widely throughout all different regions in India and other countries like Nepal, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia etc where Hindu culture had a huge influence in the society in history.]
6 In Thailand it’s called “Happy Songkran”, “Songkran” is derived from the Sanskrit word “Sankranti”. In Cambodia it’s called “Happy Mohan Songkran”, “Mohan” is derived from “Makar”, which is equivalent to Capricorn.
7 In Thailand, “Happy Songkran Day'' is traditionally celebrated as the new year, according to Buddist calendar. Every year this festival has a fixed date from April 13th to 15th, nowadays in Thailand, the new year is changed to January 1st, but people still celebrate the traditional new year in April. “Songkran” still carries the original meaning of Sanskrit word “Sankranti”, while “Sankranti” means passage in Hindu Astrology, “Songkran” means transformation and change, a change from old year into a new year. Thai people celebrate “Happy Songkran Day” by spraying water to each other, visiting Buddist monasteries and giving food to the monks. Water has significant and sacred meaning in Hinduism and Buddhism, spraying blessed water symbolizes giving blessings to other people. Thai monks also carry Budda statues through the streets of the festival as people throw sacred water on the statues.
[How do Indian people celebrate Makar Sankranti then? Just like all the other things in India, with the same festival and same concept, there are always millions of different ways for celebration and rituals, because each region has its own climate and geographical features, each place has its own history and distinctive local cultures.]
8 From the ancient times to today, India (Bharat) has always been a geographical concept that the people who live in the India Peninsular shared. People have been calling themselves as people of Bharat for thousands of years, because they shared the same mythologies and philosophies despite the regional differences. Hinduism is just a way of living and thinking (there was no word either concept of “Hinduism” in the past thousands of years until recent centuries), and everything is permitted in Hinduism because everything is just a concept of living and thinking. Jesus or Allah or Saint Maria is just one of the gods and goddesses, and there are millions of gods and goddesses in Indian mythology. You can believe in whatever you want, and that doesn’t contradict with the fact that you are an Indian or a Hindu. If you are not completely satisfied with any of the existing gods or goddesses, create one yourself, just like the millions of Gurus and Saints and derivatives of religions in India. Take a look at Budda, he was not happy enough with the existing doctrines of Hinduism so he created his own - Buddhism, and that’s absolutely fine in India. Buddhism, Sikhism, Jainism were all created and thrived in India. If one knows about these facts, one has to admit that the ultimate truth about the land of India, for thousands of years, is about diversity and inclusion.
[To me, this shows how tolerance and acceptance creates unity and strength. And this unity has always been there in the India Peninsular until the British came and injected the vernon of “Divide and Conquer”, trying to categorize people with their differences and break them up. ]
9 The British really messed India up, I have to say. Today’s India has not yet fully recovered from the ruthless robbery and mercenary exploitation. The India Peninsula was violently torn and divided and left an open wound in millions of Indians’ hearts.
10 Hopefully the power of spirituality is always going to overcome human’s greed and selfishness. The lighthouse of India’s spirituality is always going to lead us greedy humans out of the darkness and sadness. In the vast universe, any of those that seemed powerful and unbreakable is ultimately inconsequential and diminutive. If you can’t find peace and light in your heart and soul. No matter how much land and material you ever possessed, it won’t be bigger and heavier than a tiny bit of dust particle, in the river of history and time.
[ok ok.. So how do Indians celebrate Makar Sankranti? Momo focus please, focus... ]
11 so ya, each place has its own way of celebration right? It’s like that for Durga puja, Lakshmi puja, Shiv (Shiva) puja, Diwali, Holi and all, and especially for Makar Sankranti. Actually I only found out how other regions celebrate this festival by reading articles and browsing pictures online, even my mother-in-law is not that aware of how other people prepare this festival. Haha… Obviously in Punjab, this festival is called Lohri, it’s a big festival there, celebrated by Hindus and Sikhs and other villagers of different religions. Not only does it celebrate the ending of winter solstice and beginning of warmer days, it also celebrates the harvest of winter crops. People would wear new and bright dresses, set up bonfires, circling the bonfire they would dance and sing for a few days! They sing special folktale songs that are dedicated to this festival. They would also eat special food for this festival (about the food I will elaborate more when I talk about the celebration in my family later). Children would also wear the brightest and newest dresses, go from door to door to perform singing and dancing, to get sweets and gifts from neighbors. What a fun festival!
[Meanwhile in my in-law’s region, or I should say, in my in-law family, because even in the same region, people celebrate all festivals differently. In my in-law family, it’s more about the concept of a new beginning and we celebrate it with special food eating. There is no new clothes, no flying kites, no bonfire and dancing and singing and all that fun…Because we have fun in other festivals that are more important to us, every family is different... anyways...]
12 January 14th, as the end of winter solstice and beginning of warm and happy days, everything good could start from this day on. Actually from December 14th to January 14th, because it’s the coldest month in the year, it’s also the most inauspicious month. Therefore, according to tradition, nothing good should be held in this month. No wedding, no moving house, no changing jobs, no construction work, everything is halted and paused. Funny little story: all of our weddings in India, I mean mine, my sister-in-laws and our friends, were not allowed to be held after December 14th. Imagine, half of the participants are foreigners, we have a long holiday during Christmas, but no, Indian weddings are “not allowed” to be held during the long western holiday (“not allowed” here using quotation marks)… it was a bit problematic for some of our friends and family members, some of them really wanted to come but couldn’t make it because of the timing... Anyways…
13 So on January 14th, everything gets to resume and restart: weddings, moving into a new house, starting a new project, new business... As the days get warmer, luck also comes back…To celebrate this beginning, in the morning we pray to God Ganesha, since God Ganesha is the God who oversees all good beginnings.
[from our video]
Afterwards we dress up in clean and fresh traditional Indian dress, and for breakfast, we eat special food. The first thing we eat is a local sweet called Tilkut, it’s mainly made of sesame seeds. Sesame is good to eat in the winter season because they supposedly keep your body warm, and boost your immune system in the cold winter.
Then we eat Dahi Chura for breakfast. Dahi means yogurt, Chura means flattened dry rice. Yogurt is not only good for health and digestion, it’s also considered to be sacred in Hindu culture, thus indicating good luck. We usually use it during pujas and rituals. Same as Chura, the flattened rice, because rice is one of the main foods in India, it has always been given high regards. For example, in weddings in South India, families would throw a lot of rice on the groom and bride, to give them blessings. How do you make the flattened rice? In older times, all households make it themselves. First you soak the rice in water, then fry the rice, then use a special wooden tool to pound repeatedly on the rice to make it flat, when it’s dried up, you can package and store it. Nowadays not many families make Chura themselves, because the machine-made Chura is easily accessible in the market.
We also add sugar in the Dahi Chura to sweeten the dish. Most of the time, we use the traditional gul - gul means jaggery, it’s unrefined cane sugar, naturally concentrated from cane juice. Gul is considered to be better than refined or bleached sugar because it’s natural. I’m surprised to find some of our American friends started using gul as well. As we all know, natural food is truly better for your body, nowadays more and more westerners love to peep into the Indian households, so to discover new kinds of natural food or ingredients that Indians have been using traditionally. Things like Ghee, Turmeric, Gul, dishes like Lasi, Chai and different kinds of Masala, medicinal drinks like Ayurvedic herbal teas, and incense and flavored essential oil blends etc are gaining more and more popularity in the western world.
At lunch we also eat auspicious food to welcome the new cycle. What do we eat for lunch for Makar Sankranti? Khichdi! Khichdi is like porridge that mixes rice, daal (lentils) and all kinds of vegetables. We eat Khichdi with yogurt, ghee and deep fried homemade chips, super tasty and healthy! Considered to be auspicious too.
But this year we didn’t eat Khichdi on Makar Sankranti day, instead, we postponed it, we ate Khichdi the next day.
Why? Because this year the Makar Sankranti day (Jan. 14th 2021) fell on a Thursday. In Hindu culture, Thursdays are Lakshmi Mata’s Day, Goddess Lakshmi is the Goddess of wealth and happiness, so on this day, we don’t want to destroy things. Making Khichdi is to put everything together and let them all break down and blend, kind of like destroying the ingredients. So we don’t want to make Khichdi on Thursdays, at least my in-law family believes so. Usually we eat Khichdi on Saturdays, because it’s easy to cook, just put everything in the pot and let it boil, this gives mommies some time to relax and rest.
[end of our own video]
[In Hindu culture, sometimes you would find a lot of rules for everything.]
14 For example in Hindu households, nobody blooms their floor after sunset, around 6, 7pm. Because this is the Lakshmi Goddess’ time (of power?), blooming the floor could sweep away good fortune, as most Hindus believe. I respect the rules and I am ok with them, most of the time…. until it gets inflexible and rigid. And it’s extremely hard for me to face the rules or ways that discriminate against special groups of people, for example, women, LGBTQ, certain professions, lower classes or lower castes. And I hope as people getting more and more aware of the inequality and underlying discrimination that exist in the soceity, rules which instigate and reinforce discriminative behaviors should be rejected one by one slowly. And that’s why speaking up for yourself, making your voice heard is such a crucial social act. I always encourage different individuals to share their stories and their perspectives. Every Story Matters.
[Ok! This is what I want to say about the festival of Makar Sankranti and how my family celebrates it. I hope you enjoyed it and I will see you in the next video!]
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