For those of us staying away from our homes, festivals are the times where homesickness hits the most. With the cool winds of January bringing the harvest season to its fruition, the month saw people celebrating the arrival of fresh stock from farms with much cheer and joy. While Mumbai indulged in jaggery-laden sweets and crunchy snacks to celebrate Makar Sankranti, members of the Assamese community in Thane soaked in the spirit of Bihu on January 18 with a celebration full of revelry, food and obviously, nostalgia.

Most of them live in Thane, and have been coming here for nearly 13 years. Since then, these celebrations include Bihu potluck parties at home with food cooked by the women of the community, before groups were formed on social media in 2014. “When we started gathering at each other’s houses for Bihu, there were very few Assamese families. The community expanded over the years and there came a point where people couldn’t be accommodated in the homes; it’s when we decided to host the festival on a bigger scale and I formed a Facebook group along with a few other people to keep everyone connected,” Gautaam Borah, the organiser of the festival tells us.