How Makar Sankranti festival plays significant role in Hindu customs?

Half of the country has celebrated Makar Sankranti Festival. It’s a big fat social festival with colorful decorations, kite flying, and other beautiful customs. People celebrate the festival with a great deal of harmony and brotherhood with Kites and with donating Food, Clothes, and Money, etc. 

According to several Hindu customs, Makar Sankranti is also known for the return of Lord Sun to his son Lord Shani. The 2019 MahaYog day of Makar Sankranti will give you a chance to please both Lord Shani and Lord Sun. This Maha-yog is said to come once in 28 years. This day has the longest day and night in the year. In some parts of India, it is considered to be the holiest dip in the Ganga and is said to wash away sins and brings purity to one’s soul. Notably, it is considered to be compulsory for women in the northern regions of India to take this holy dip in Ganga for the long lives of their husbands.

Northern India celebrates this day with kite-flying, and there is so many kite-flying competitions happen throughout Northern India. The ritual of flying Kite is for health benefits and is not religious. The incredible part of the festival is that after these festivals the days are longer and nights become shorter.

Interestingly, Makar Sankranti is celebrated in different names in the country. As in the south, it is widely called ‘Pongal;’ in Punjab and Haryana, it’s called ‘Lohri;’ in Assam, it is called ‘Bihu;’ and ‘Khichdi festival’ in Bihar.

According to Hindu customs, it is considered that every good step in life should start by doing some good for society.   Like in 2018, when one of the biggest business tycoons in India, Mr. Mukesh Ambani decided to get her daughter married, he started the wedding by first feeding 5,100 differently abled in ‘Anna Seva' event which happened at Narayan Seva Sansthan– Udaipur.  Such is the tradition that India follows.

The author of the article Mr. Prashant Agarwal is the president of Narayan Seva Sansthan, a non-profit organization serving differently able and underprivileged individuals.