Every January New England Marathi Mandal community gets ready to celebrate Sankrant festival when Sun transits in to Makar rashi.

This year NEMM celebrated Makar Sankrant on January 20^th at Billerica Marshall Middle School.This year’s celebration was even more special as NEMM celebrates its 40^th anniversary.

Sankrant festivities started with Haldi-Kunku –where women came all dressed up in Black- it’s a tradition to wear Black sari or Black colored attire for this celebration. Along with Haldi Kunku women are given ‘Vaan’- a small gift.This year NEMM sourced these small gifts ‘Gudhi’s’ from Sanmvedana School, Nagpur Maharashtra. These ‘Gudhi’s’ were handmade by Sanmvedana School kids. Sanmvedana School is a non-residential school for kids with special needs. 

NEMM continued the tradition of Bor-nahan for small kids this year too. 'Bornahan' is a very old ritual which starts from the festival Makar Sankrant until Ratha Saptami. Kids up to 5 years old were dolled up in ‘Halwyache Dagine' ornaments such as garland, bracelets, crown made of edible sugar candy and then showered with various goodies like candies, popcorn etc. (traditionally little ones get the bath of berries, sugar cane pieces and puffed rice). Bornahan signifies the intention 'showering young ones with love and blessings and mainly introducing them to different food'.

The entertainment program 'Sur-Kavita' was presented by talented musicians and singers of New England which was well received by the audience of more than 350 people. 

Sur Kavita was directed by Sarita Deshpande and Priya Vaidya  and presented by Priya Vaidya & Shilpa Nikate (Narration), Sujat Sukhtankar (tabla), Bharat Lagu (percussion), Ashish Panse (Octopad), Sujeet Phanse (Flute), Nikhil Pendharkar (keyboard), Sudipta Singh (Guitar) and Sarita Deshpande, Neha Verma, Shailesh Salgar, Sagar Tayade (Vocal).

Artists presented devotional, semi-classical songs to ever beautiful marathi poems by renowned poets like Kusumagraj, Ga.Di.Madgulkar, Vasant Bapat, Shanta Shelke and many more...along with informal discussion about poets, their perception about poems and stories which made the program even more interesting and memorable. Audience loved soaking in live music and tapping to the melodies… old and new.

After organizing Makar Sankrant 2018 successfully, enthusiastic NEMM committee is looking forward to celebrating NEMM Gudhi Padwa with New England community on Saturday, March 24 at Ashland High School. 

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