It took me a long time to decide which one of many is my favorite childhood memory.

Since it's the month of January and the festivals of Lohri and Sakranti have just passed, I felt nostalgic about how we celebrated these festivals when we were kids. I think our parents did a better job than us today in passing on the festive vibes to us, even with limited resources.

We celebrate Lohri on 13th Feb (the only sign we are Punjabis apart from our surnames). It was celebrated with a bonfire followed by prayers, dance, and fun. Our extended families met at a common place, which meant the host prepared dinner for all, made sure the bonfire set-up was ready, and the music system and playlist were ready.

Post the rituals, the women usually were busy chit-chatting and clearing up the kitchen while the males left for the night kite market in Jaipur (which is definitely a place to visit if you are in Jaipur on that day). They returned back in an hour or so, and that was when the real fun began. All of us in our comfortable wear, sitting on the floor in a common room, making our kites ready (tang baandhna) for the next day (14th January - Makar Sakranti - crazy kite flying in Jaipur). Everyone had an assigned responsibility for the next day. Someone was responsible for food supply to the terrace, someone for water, someone took care of the music system set-up, and someone prepared the playlist of the songs. Some were busy moving all kites to the terrace; the number of kites was no less than 300, as many of our families and friends joined us on the day of Sakranti. We barely used to sleep for an hour or so, wake up early morning, take a bath, do the prayer (the khichdi donation), and just run away to the terrace. It was kind of an unsaid competition with all our neighborhood friends to be the first on the terrace, play music at the maximum sound possible (must be an alarm for most of our neighbors). My Mamaji, who is a pro at kite flying, made sure his kite was the highest up in the sky before any of us reached the terrace. The kite was invisible to us (only the thread in his hand moving). By the time most of our neighbors started flying, his invisible kite's thread acted like a sword (the long distance of the kite makes it very heavy), and before they could understand anything, their kite was gone, followed by a loud sound from our group, "Wo kataaaaa." After flying the same kite for many hours, his friends broke the thread without him knowing (because they knew if his kite went, they were the ones to roll all the thread). It was so much fun to see everyone laughing their hearts out, making fun of each other, pranking each other, with many friends and family members visiting us during the day. During the evening, our yellow and white kites went up with lanterns tied on the thread (not sure if they still come with candles placed inside them). The thread was beautifully lit with 3-4 lanterns and the yellow kite still visible in the dark sky.

By the end of the day, we were all sitting tying bandages on each other's fingers as they were all cut by manjha. Flaunting the cuts the next day at school, the more the cuts, the more the pakka Jaipurite you were considered. 😀 Fun days... Hope to have them back!