A Lohri to celebrate birth of girl children

The Malwa Cultural Forum will on January 10 organise a Lohri event meant to celebrate the birth of girl children, officials said.

They said the event is aimed at changing the mindset of the masses who believe that girls and boys are not equal.

The upcoming event will be the 29th Lohri festival being organised to welcome girl children.

Krishan Kumar Bawa, under whose patronage the event is held each year, said he and Jagdev Singh Jassowal started the tradition when the sex ratio in Punjab was in dire straits.

Citing an example, Bawa said that about 50 years ago, a family in Lalton Kalan village had killed their daughter. However, they had another daughter soon after, who has since been married and moved to Canada, pointing to a change in their hearts and beliefs. Bawa described instances of femicide as “painful”.

There was a popular song in Punjabi, “gurh khayeen pooni kattin, aap na aayeen veere nu ghallin”. Bawa said that when girls were born, the lady of the house sang this song and strangled the baby girl.

“To change people’s mindset, we tried to start celebrating the birth of the girls. The first such Lohri event was held at Mullanpur in the 1990s, where 31 girls were called upon and their birth was celebrated. This year, the birth of 125 new born girls, in 2025, will be celebrated,” said Bawa.

The forum holds a grand festival and distributes toys, clothes and money to girl children. In the evening, a cultural festival is held with Punjab’s traditional dances, Giddha and Bhangra.