Indore (Madhya Pradesh): Lal Loi and Lohri Celebrations will be eco-friendly in Indore, the cleanest city of India. Sindhi and Punjabi community is preparing to celebrate the festival of Lohri or Lal Loi will be celebrated on Saturday.The communities will form a bonfire using cow dung cakes instead of wood to control deforestation. Lohri holds special significance especially for Sikhs and Punjabis.
Children have begun preparations for it. They have collected wood along with traditional food. In Indore, children are preparing games, outfits, menu lists and music playlists. Nuts, sesame, rewdis, groundnut, jaggery, chickpeas, corn, spinach, etc. will be the main ingredients in delicacies prepared for the day. In the evening on the day of Lohri, people will gather and start a bonfire.
For this auspicious occasion, people are practising traditional songs that will be sung as ‘Mangal’ songs. People from both the communities will walk around the bonfire, pray, sing and dance. Along with this, rewdi, groundnut, kheer, maize grains will be offered to the bonfire, Devender Singh Gandhi, representative from Sikh community said.
‘Special congratulations are given to the house in which a new marriage or child has taken place and after whose marriage the first Lohri or the first Lohri of the child takes place,” Gandhi said. He added that the newly-married couple walks around the fire and pray for happiness for their conjugal life and get blessings by touching the feet of elders.
Anil Aaga from the Sindhi community said, ‘It is of prime importance that we celebrate festivals in a way that it doesn't affect our mother earth negatively.’ Celebrations will be seen all across the city in Sikh and Sindhi-dominated areas including Sikh Mohalla, Manik Bagh, Sindhi Colony and in townships.
