ਸਾਵਣ

Sawan (ਸਾਵਣ) is the fifth month of the Punjabi calendar, the monsoon month that runs from mid July to mid August in the Nanakshahi solar calendar. After the fierce heat of Harh, Sawan brings the rains Punjab farms and families wait for, and with them the greenest, most humid weeks of the year.

What does sawan mean in Punjabi?

Sawan names the fifth month of the Punjabi and Nanakshahi calendars. In the Nanakshahi solar calendar it runs for 31 days, from 16 July to 16 August, coming after Harh and before Bhadon, as the Sawan calendar page sets out. The name is also written ਸਾਉਣ (saun). Beyond the calendar, the word stands for the rainy season at its height: the Rekhta dictionary gives saavan as the second month of the rainy season, from 15 July to 15 August, and simply as the month of rains.

The month coincides with Shraavana in the Hindu calendar, with which it shares its derivation, and it is described as the most humid month of the year in South Asia. For a farming land, that humidity is the point. Sawan rain decides how the paddy stands, how the wells fill, and whether the summer heat finally breaks.

What happens in Punjab during Sawan?

Sawan is the month of Teeyan, the women's festival of the monsoon. SikhiWiki describes Teeyan celebrated in Sawan under big shady trees by a river or pond, with swings thrown over the branches and singing and giddha filling the air. Married daughters traditionally return to their parents' home for it, and brothers hang or repair the swings for their sisters. The Sawan calendar page places Teeyan across the middle of the month and Rakhri, when sisters tie a thread on their brothers' wrists, on its last day. The month also holds the birth anniversary of Guru Har Krishan, on 8 Sawan.

Why do Punjabis sing about Sawan?

Because the month has always carried feeling as well as weather. The Rekhta dictionary notes that saavan also names the songs of the rainy season, the sawan songs sung through the rains. At Teeyan those songs are sung on the swings, and in folk tradition Sawan is the month of longing: the rains have come, the fields are green, and the songs ask after the people who are far away. No other Punjabi month is sung about so much.