Community festival. Kite-flying (Gujarat) + sugarcane (Punjab Lohri) + cow worship (Tamil Pongal) - all involve OUTDOOR family gathering in mild winter sun. After weeks of short, cold, indoors-by-dusk days, the calendar puts a whole neighbourhood on the terraces and in the fields at the same hour: daylight, shared food, noise, and the first harvest of the year. That is what the observance is for - a fixed date on which the household stops working alone and eats with everyone else.