The high point of Sankranti was the haldi-kumkum where turmeric and red kumkum is distributed to all women. As children we were given the most important task of going from house to house in the vicinity and inviting the ladies for the haldi-kumkum. Mostly, the invitations were issued a day or so in advance.

Then there was a frenzy of preparations. You had to pull out the silver attar-dani, which contained perfume on a cotton ball, gulab -dani which had rose-water and take-away gifts which were very practical and varied each year! There was a challenge to be creative as you did not want to repeat a gift given by someone else the same year atleast. So it could be anything from candles to green vegetables but the most common was steel spoons and bowls.Oh, and how could I forget the flowers, mostly asters white,pink and violet!

On the day of the function, the living room was cleaned thoroughly and doilies laid on the teapoy. The silver ware arranged and a bowl of sesame seeds laddoos kept alongside. The old throws and hand embroidered sheets were laid out neatly on the diwan and then the women would begin to trickle. All dressed in lovely traditional sarees, green, blue, red, orange, pink violet and flowers in their hair. We children got to wear our parkar-polkas which was a long skirt with a blouse. I had a red one with sequins and a black one with bright red and yellow flowers!

Then the ladies of the house would give the haldi-kumkum and til-gul and their gifts. My friends A and K would join our family as volunteers and we got to distribute the rest - flowers, attar and gulab jal. I loved the gulab-jal duty where I could walk around sprinkling gulab jal on everyone and they would say, Stop, stop, enough!

Some of the Aunties would bring small gifts for the kids, some guavas or bananas from their own gardens or sometimes some snack they had made at home and so it would be a fragrant, delicious evening to remember!