Makar Sankranti

When the Sun enters Capricorn (Makara), it begins its northward journey called Uttarayana, considered supremely auspicious as days grow longer and warmer. According to the Mahabharata, the great patriarch Bhishma Pitamah lay on his bed of arrows for months after the Kurukshetra war, mortally wounded. Though it was within his power to choose the moment of his own death—a boon granted by his father Shantanu—he waited patiently for the sacred Uttarayana to begin. On Makar Sankranti, with the Sun entering its northward arc, Bhishma finally released his life-breath, departing in the most auspicious of all moments.

The festival is celebrated across India by different names—Pongal in Tamil Nadu, Uttarayan in Gujarat, Lohri in Punjab, and Magh Bihu in Assam. Kite-flying has become iconic in Gujarat, symbolising the soul's yearning for liberation toward the divine. The ritual bath in sacred rivers on this day is believed to wash away all sins accumulated through the preceding year, as the transition point of the Sun is held to purify the waters running beneath it.