Makar Sankranti and Lohri Gifting: A Practical Guide to Til-Gud Boxes

Why til-gud is the festival's traditional gift

Makar Sankranti and Lohri are the two mid-January festivals that mark the sun's northward turn and the peak of the sugarcane and sesame harvest. Both festivals have, for generations, been built around one simple exchange: til and gud — sesame and jaggery — given to family, neighbours and colleagues.

In Maharashtra the phrase is 'til gud ghya, god god bola' — take this sesame and jaggery, and speak sweetly. In Punjab and North India the Lohri equivalent is quieter but the substance is the same: warmth given as food. The til-gud box is not a modern invention; it is the packaged form of a very old winter gesture.

What makes a good til-gud box

A good box gets three things right: assortment, texture range, and shelf life.

Assortment matters more than volume. A single flavour in a large box wears thin by the third piece; three or four varieties in the same weight is a better gift and a more traditional one. Try to include at least one gud-based slab (the classic), one tilpatti (the delicate showpiece), and one variation like khasta or dry-fruit that shows range.

Texture range keeps the box interesting. Combine a dense chewy piece with a crisp thin one. If everything in the box has the same bite, the recipient stops after two servings.

Shelf life is the practical one. Til-gud sweets are hygroscopic — they soften in humidity. A good box will state a manufacturing date, use sealed inner packing, and be honest about a 3–4 week eating window for gajak and tilpatti. Boxes marketed as lasting 'six months' either use preservatives or are overstating.

Box sizes by recipient

A rough guide that works for most gifting occasions.

The order calendar

Gajak is a winter-production sweet. Karigars make it roughly between October and January because the craft needs cool ambient air to keep the jaggery workable on the slab. Outside that window, quality drops and volumes shrink. This has real consequences for anyone gifting at Sankranti or Lohri.

Here is the calendar every gifting buyer should plan against.

Shipping fragile sweets: why gajak breaks

Gajak is beautiful and brittle. It breaks for two reasons: because it is a laminated, thin structure, and because most sellers pack it as if it were biscuits. The failure modes are predictable — long slabs that flex and snap in transit, loose pieces that shuffle and grind each other into fragments, and inner trays with too much void space around them.

What good packing looks like: a rigid inner tray sized close to the piece, individual wrap for each slab, void-fill around the tray, and an outer carton stiff enough that a courier can drop it on a corner without deforming. Ask a seller how they pack for courier before you commit to a shipped gift; if the answer is vague, buy locally.

Corporate gifting: what changes

For company gifting the constraints are different — you are not buying one box, you are buying identical boxes at scale, with a lead time and often a custom branded sleeve. That work needs to start months earlier than a personal order.

See our bulk and corporate page for MOQ, lead times and custom-branding options. For fully custom hampers combining gajak with other festival pieces, our sister brand GiftingAdda handles the assembly work.

What to avoid

A short list, from years of watching what disappoints recipients.

• Heavily coloured gajak — traditional gajak is jaggery-brown or pale gold. Bright colours indicate additives.
• Palm-oil-based versions — they save the seller cost, cheapen the mouthfeel, and are not part of the tradition.
• Boxes with no manufacturing date on the pack — the whole point of a winter sweet is freshness.
• Very long shelf life claims — six-month gajak is either preserved or was never really crisp to begin with.
• Loose bulk cartons for shipping — they arrive as powder. Insist on individual inner wrapping.