What is Maghe Sankranti?
Today, in Nepal, Hindus celebrate a festival called Maghe Sankranti. This festival is observed on the first day of the month of Magh in the Vikram Sambat calendar (usually January 14th but it fell on January 15th this year) to celebrate the movement of Sun to the Capricorn sign. This transition marks the end of winter and beginning of spring bringing auspiciousness to many Nepali families. Since the inauspicious days come to an end supposedly after this day, many sacred rituals such as weddings and pujas can be performed from today onwards.
On this day, people in Nepal, and other countries that observe this festival like India, take baths on holy rivers for a cleanse. There’s also several types of ceremonies, fairs, kite-flying, and feasts that happen to celebrate this day.
Celebration With My Family
Growing up, my family always celebrated this day. We would make tons of food and sweets and enjoy the day with family, relatives, and friends. The types of food people eat include tarul (yam), teel-laddoo (sesame sweet), bhuja-laddoo (puffed-rice sweet), chaku (made from concentrated sugarcane juice, jaggery, ghee, and nuts), and more.
This gif was made using giphy.com
Today, I visited my parents and on this snowy day, we make some delicious sweets to bring the family together. Let me share some pictures with you!
Teel-Laddoo or Sesame Sweet
To make these, first you roast the brown sesame without any oil till they turn light brown. Next, you mix some jaggery and water to make a syrup that will later hold the sesame together to make the laddoos. Finally, all you have to do it carefully make small balls (with your hands) by mixing the roasted sesame and some syrup mix and wah-lah, you have teel-ko-laddoos!
This is jaggery. It's basically just cane sugar and is very popular in Asia.
This is jaggery melted with some water to make the syrup like I discussed above.
Bhuja-Laddoo or Puffed-Rice Sweet
To make these, all you do is replace the sesame in the directions above for Teel-Laddoo with some puffed rice and you have these! Yummy! 😍
We, as South Asians, tend to love desserts so we have festivals that always involve making some sort of sweet item. The primary ingredient is dairy based so milk, ghee, etc.
Does your country celebrate any festival around this time of the year? What do you do to celebrate it? Leave comments below! <3
-Reez