The Outlaw Who Would Not Sell a Girl

Lohri is marked each year on the last night of the month of Paush, just before Makar Sankranti. A bonfire is lit at sunset, and communities gather around it to sing, dance, and share food. Its roots lie in the closing of the winter harvest in Punjab. They also lie in older solar and fire-centred customs tied to this point in the year. This is when the coldest stretch of winter is understood to be ending, with the sun's northward turn close at hand. Offerings of sesame seeds, jaggery, popcorn, and peanuts are thrown into the fire. They are eaten afterward too, as thanks for both the harvest and the fire's warmth.

Ask most Punjabi families why Lohri songs mention a man named Dulla Bhatti, though, and the fire itself is only half the answer. Dulla Bhatti, properly Rai Abdullah Khan Bhatti, was a real historical figure. He was a chieftain from the Sandal Bar region of Punjab, in what is now Pakistan. He led a long revolt against the land taxes and rule of the Mughal emperor Akbar, in the sixteenth century.