Lohri 2028: Date, Rituals & Significance

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Lohri is especially kept for the first Lohri of a newlywed bride and of a newborn — the family gives sweets and gifts and the child is blessed round the fire. Children go door to door singing for Lohri 'loot' of sweets and money, and the harvest of sugarcane, sesame and the new radish crop is celebrated.

The songs centre on Dulla Bhatti, a Punjabi Robin Hood of Akbar's time who rescued girls being sold and gave them dowries and marriages; the refrain 'Sunder mundriye, ho!' retells his story. Sarson da saag with makki di roti and til-gur sweets are the food.

Lohri is the Punjabi form of the midwinter fire festival that marks the end of the winter solstice period and the turn toward Makar Sankranti; the bonfire, like the Bhogi and meji fires, burns the old and welcomes the sun's return. The Dulla Bhatti legend gives it its distinctive social memory of protecting the vulnerable.

Source: Punjabi folklore — the Dulla Bhatti ballad and the Lohri bonfire

Lohri is documented in Punjabi folklore and colonial accounts of the Punjab as a bonfire-and-song festival tied to the winter solstice and the sugarcane harvest; the Dulla Bhatti ballad is a widely collected piece of Punjabi oral literature.

• Punjabi folklore — the Dulla Bhatti ballad and the Lohri bonfire
• Wikipedia — Lohri

1. At dusk families and neighbours light a bonfire in the courtyard or the street and walk around it, throwing in til, jaggery, rewri, peanuts and popcorn as offerings to the fire.
2. Folk songs are sung around the fire, above all 'Sundar mundriye', which remembers Dulla Bhatti, the Robin Hood of Punjab folklore; bhangra and gidda follow.
3. Children go from house to house singing for sweets and money; a family's first Lohri after a wedding or a birth is celebrated with special warmth.

• Punjab, Haryana, Himachal, Delhi. The dusk bonfire with til, gur and rewri thrown in, Dulla Bhatti songs, and special celebration of a bride's or baby's first Lohri.
• Jammu. Lohri is a major festival with children collecting Lohri and the bonfire lit in every mohalla.

• Rewri and gajak — Sesame and jaggery sweets, both thrown into the fire and shared.
• Til-gur, peanuts and popcorn — The offerings of the bonfire, eaten around it.
• Sarson da saag and makki di roti — The winter meal of the night.
• Rau di kheer — Rice cooked slowly in sugarcane juice, often kept for Maghi the next morning.

Lohri falls on Friday, 14 January 2028. Punjabi mid-winter bonfire festival, the eve of Makar Sankranti, usually 13 January.

at sunrise

Lohri is kept on 13 January, the eve of Maghi (Makar Sankranti) — the Sun's entry into sidereal Capricorn. It is effectively a fixed-date festival tied to the solstice season; the small drift of the sidereal Sankranti keeps it on 13 January in the present era.

The date is set by the Hindu lunisolar calendar and shifts against the Gregorian year.