We all celebrated Makar Sankranti on the 14th of Jan. We had a holiday at work, so was able to spend some quality time with my family at home. I have so many fond memories from my childhood about this festival. When I was a kid, staying in CBD Belapur, Navi Mumbai (New Bombay as it used to be called then), we had a kids gang of sorts, about 10-15 of us, used to play cricket-cricket, maybe sometimes other games like soccer, badminton but we were cricket lovers to the core. Anyways so back to Makar Sankranti, on this auspicious day we used to get up early, my mom would make special “Tilgul” sweets at home and we used to go distribute sweets door-to-door in our neighbourhood, alongwith “Tilgul” it is a Marathi tradition, to quote “Tilgul ghya god bola”, i.e. “Have Tilgul and talk sweet throughout the year”. We used to take blessings of all the elders and used to feast on the sweets. Oh..those were the days…
Coming back to the present, on the 14th, as usual was up by 6:00/6:30 am and we (Sawani and I) decided that we should make tilgul at home. Lazed around a bit, since it was a day off and then decided to go on my bicycle ride. 15 kms in 45 mins was what i was able to do. Got a hair cut and was back at home. Finished up reading up the news and then went on a calling spree. Called my folks back home in Pune and chatted with them, called up some of my buddies from college and wished each other. In the evening Sawani went and purchased all the items that were needed to make “Tilgul” and she & I finally got down to making “Tilgul”. Btw: when I say I it really means I interfere more than help most of the times, but this time I actually helped her “mould” the tilgul in “ladoos”. It was fun and they tasted just fabulous. Arjun also enjoyed a lot, although he was more interested in his cars and movies.
Overall it was a sweet day, with memories of the youth, delicious sweets to savour and hopes for a wonderfully sweet 2009.
Cheers,
YVR
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