Kites, Sweets and Togetherness: Poush Parbon's Link to Pan-Indian Sankranti

The festival is also known as Poush Sankranti, depicting its links with the pan-Indian harvest festival Makar Sankranti. The three-day celebration begins on the day before Sankranti(Bauni), and ends on the day after(Akkhin).

The celebration ends with the Baharlaxmi Puja on the third day Akkhin. For this, Goddess Lakshmi is worshipped in an open place as it's the celebration of new crops. Most often, a bowl of grain paddy grain is considered as the goddess and worshipped, rather than an idol.

“Just those words are taking me back to memories of the taste and smell of jaggery, rice flour, and coconut - each ingredient carries its own story,” says Twisha Guha Roy, a senior linguist in Hyderabad, who hails from Chinsurah in West Bengal.

The star of Poush Parbon is nolen gur, the liquid date palm jaggery that is added to most of the delicacies made that day.

“On that day, the air itself felt different. You could smell the pithhe and payesh cooking in every home. Enjoying hot pithhe on a cold winter day is a heavenly feeling. Patisapta, doodh puli, gokul pithhe, soru chakli….” Twisha trails off, lost in memories of home-made sankranti sweets.

Daughter-in-law to a Telugu household now, she finds many similarities between how Poush Parbon is celebrated in Bengal and how Sankranti is celebrated at her athai’s house. “Be it there or here, Sankranti is as much about togetherness as it is about food. But one difference might be that Telugu people focus more on veg or non-veg dishes, for Bengalis it's totally about sweets,” she says.

In some parts of West Bengal, kite flying is a part of the Poush Parbon celebration, much like how it is celebrated in the Telugu states.