It's officially the season to eat sweet, speak sweet, and wear sweet. Take for instance, Kandivali-resident Jayashree Manohar Gharde’s nine-month-old nephew and nine-year-old niece, who are ready for their bornan or bornahan today. The little ones will have their friends over, be surrounded by treats like chocolates, kurmura, sugarcane cubes, peanuts and sorghum, and get decked up in jewellery crafted out of halwa balls. “While my nephew’s jewellery — a crown, necklace, flute — are fashioned after lord Krishna, my niece’s necklace, bangles and bindi are inspired by Radha,” she shares. It’s a tradition that Gharde has grown up with, and one that she plans to pass on to the next generation, in the hope of blessing them with a life that’s as sweet as the halwyache dagine (halwa jewellery) that they are wearing.

Like Gharde’s niece and nephew, kids, especially newborns, and newly-weds from the Maharashtrian community will dress up today in this edible jewellery that’s made especially for Makar Sankranti. While kids are blessed during bornan, newly-weds wear the ornaments for haldi kumkum, shares home chef Rufina Shrotri. It’s the only auspicious day on which Maharashtrians get to wear black, she adds. Dombivali-based Madhuri Nikumbh Shiudkar, who starts taking orders from November to craft these ornaments at home, explains, “The idea is to ensure their life is filled with the sweetness of success and prosperity. For kids, bornan can be done in the period between Makar Sankranti and Ratha Saptami.”