Sankranthi is the festival of harvest and is celebrated with much jest in India (esp Southern India). Back in my childhood, when we used to live in a village, this festival denoted the start of harvesting the rice fields and we used to have a lot of fun lighting up “Bhoghi Mantalu”, which were essentially large bonfires of old stuff that needed to be discarded. And being a kid, everything in the house “qualified” to be discarded for me :).
Another thing that distinguished this festival was that all the household entrances were decorated with colored rice flour. Here’s a picture of a typical decoration
For the kids, it was also the festival of kites. And boy, some folks were pretty serious about their kites and the competitions. Here’s a nice picture showing the landscape littered with kites..
Wishing everyone a happy Sankranthi :).