Harvest joys, bonfires, Chajja dances: Lohri rekindles Jammu & Kashmir’s long-nurtured cultural bonds

13 January 2024

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Jammu, Jan 13: As winter’s cool grip starts to loosen, Jammu erupts in joyous celebration for Lohri today, the vibrant festival marking the harvest and bidding farewell to the bitter cold.

As the flames of Lohri dance under the winter sky, they illuminate not just the fields of Jammu and nearby Punjab, ripe with harvest, but also the deep-rooted connection between the people of Jammu and Kashmir regions.

For decades, especially in the post-independence era, Lohri festival has been an occasion for diverse cultures and faiths to get together and celebrate. It has been an occasion when the cosmopolitan Jammu city would see a large number of people from Kashmir, Ladakh and colder Pirpanjal and Chenab valley regions taking refuge there from bitter winter cold.

“Lohri has been a unique occasion when we celebrated it together, irrespective of our cultures or faiths. We shared joys through many decades of the historic Durbar Move era. I long to see that era back”, observes Shashi Gupta, a retired government official.

As the sun shone over the Jammu plains this morning, Lohri dawned with the rhythmic beats of ‘dhol’ drums, accompanying young boys dancing the exuberant ‘Hiran’ – mimicking the gait of a stag.

“I remember from my youth days, we would make bonfires under starry skies near our flats. Their warmth felt like chasing away the lingering chill and making us feel we would be going back home soon”, reflects Nazir Khan, a businessman from Srinagar, who has been spending the winter time in Jammu since 1970s.

Across the plains of Jammu, as always, today, Lohri took on a distinct flavor. Children, held the vibrantly decorated ‘chajjas’ – miniature replicas of peacocks made from twigs and adorned with paper and flowers. In some areas they sang folk songs and collected offerings of dry fruits and coins, even as this tradition is not much visible in Jammu’s urban areas now.

Speaking to Ziraat Times, Navneet Singh, a resident of Jammu city reflected on her own memories “In our childhood, Revri, a sweet popcorn mix, and ‘sarson ka saag’ (mustard greens) graced the festive tables, and I remember we did all this with everyone – Kashmiri Muslims, Pandits and all”.

“It used to be an occasion when we would do ‘bhangra’ and ‘chhajja’ dances together irrespective of which background we came from. And Durbar Move was a great tradition to make this shared culture live on”, said Navneet.

To people like Navneet, who celebrate the shared cultures of Kashmir and Jammu, Lohri’s magic lies not just in its rituals, but in its power to unite.

“During the Durbar Move era, when the state government shifted between Srinagar and Jammu, Lohri became a bridge between the two regions. People from both Jammu and Kashmir celebrated together, sharing customs and stories. The good thing is that even today, the echoes of that shared spirit resonate, a testament to the festival’s unifying power”, says Rajini Dhar, who lives in Jammu and has been organising community get-togethers on Lohri in her multi cultural community in the city.

I think what is important today is to make the younger generations appreciate the beauty of such shared cultural festivals. These events provide an opportunity to brings hearts and minds together in a world of negativity. Civil societies and senior citizens of Kashmir, Jammu and Ladakh, who have experienced the past bonhomie together need to pass on the culture to the younger ones, says an emotional retired official Abdul Hameed.

Although there have been apprehensions that the end of Darbar Move might dampen winter migration from Kashmir to Jammu, a large number of people have shifted to Jammu this winter, nevertheless. This winter interaction is known to strengthen understanding and cultural bonds across these regions.

“As today the rhythmic beats of dhols and the warmth of the Lohri bonfires bring hope and joy, this festival reminds us that even in the harshest winters, the spark of togetherness can melt away all differences”, says Rukhsana Begum, an Anantnag resident who spends her winter time and Lohri with her old friends in Jammu today.

Today, if you see a generation of Kashmiris having an emotional bond with Jammu and this festival, it is the outcome of those days when they would roam around with children of Jammu, holding hands, on Lohri and create a future legacy. This legacy must live on, sums up Mr Gupta.