On a crisp evening of Friday, January 10th, UFV students that work at SASI as Research Assistants, organized an event to celebrate the popular Punjabi folk festival, Lohri. Lohri signifies the end of winter solstice and the beginning of a new harvest season. It is celebrated by lighting a bonfire where family and friends gather to share food, including peanuts, sesame seeds, and jaggery. These items are also thrown into the fire during the celebrations, representing the end of the past year and the start of a new one.
The University’s K building patio was vibrantly decorated, and guests arrived in beautifully designed traditional attire to attend the event. Propane firepits were set up to signify the roaring bonfire, around which family and friends traditionally gather in the cold days of January.
Popular traditional Lohri foods such as peanuts, sesame seed sweets and peanut brittle added both nostalgia and memory. The night consisted of remarkable singing performances by Sadhik and Jash, who also debuted an original song they co-wrote and by a new band at UFV called Goonj (echo) made up of Afnan, Prasoon, Robin and Gursahib. There was an entertaining dance performance by Saumyaa, Mehr and Priyanshu and the evening continued with everyone joining in to dance to popular music curated by a student.
This Lohri event was organized by UFV students Saumyaa, Mehr and Devyank, who are also RA’s at SASI. In discussion, they discovered that many of the new students, especially international students, were not familiar with the South Asian Studies Institute. They believed this was a great way to introduce SASI and give the students a reason to celebrate, especially since for some of them this was their first Lohri at UFV. The students are thankful to UFV International and to SASI who were sponsors of the event. A heartfelt thank you to CIVL Radio, who assisted in organizing and setting up the speakers and mics for the singers.
All those that attended had an enjoyable time celebrating! They expressed that it was a little piece of home brought to them in their new home at UFV Abbotsford.
Please view photos here: