Nobody comes down off the roof to eat. That single fact shapes everything Lahore eats during Basant: it has to arrive already made, it has to be eaten with one hand, and it has to survive sitting out from noon until well after dark. Which is how a festival about kites ended up with a menu this specific.
Basant 2027 runs 12–14 March. This page is about what goes on the roof. What the festival is and where it came from is on the explainer.
The short list
Jalebi. The one non-negotiable. Hot, orange, syrup-heavy, eaten by the fistful and inseparable from Basant in a way nothing else on this list quite is.
Pakoras and samosas. Fried, portable, good cold, and they hold for hours. The reason they dominate rooftop trays is entirely practical.
Haleem. The serious dish of Basant, and the one that justifies bringing bowls up. Slow-cooked, heavy, and precisely what you want when the roof turns cold after sunset.
Gajrela. Carrot halwa, warm, dense, and at its best in the depth of winter, when the carrots are in season — by a mid-March Basant you are catching the tail of it.
Kashmiri chai. Pink, salted, and the single most useful thing on a rooftop at nine in the evening. Lahore drinks it all evening at Basant and it is the item people most often forget to plan for.
Barbecue, after dark. Seekh kebab, tikka, chicken — the fires come out when the kites come down, and this is when a Basant roof stops being about flying and starts being about the party.
Pathurey and street sweets. Whatever the local bazaar is frying that week.
How the day is actually shaped
Worth knowing if you are hosting, because Basant food is not one meal.
Late morning to afternoon. Nobody wants heavy food while the wind is good and the flying is serious. This is the fried-snack window — pakoras, samosas, jalebi — eaten standing up, one hand on a line.
Sunset. The change of shift. Flying tails off, people arrive who were somewhere else all day, and the chai goes on. This is when the roof fills up.
Evening into night. The real meal. Haleem, barbecue, dhol on the roofs, and it runs late. The drums going long into the night are not an exaggeration — that is the actual pattern.
Plan the food against those three phases and it works. Plan one large lunch and you will have cold food at two and nothing at nine.
Feeding a roof without leaving it
Five things that make the difference, none of them about recipes:
- Buy fried food in, do not make it there. No one wants a karahi of hot oil on a crowded roof, and the rules on what is banned up there exist for a reason. Order it up.
- Everything must be one-handed. The other hand is holding a line or a phone. Anything requiring a knife will not be eaten.
- Chai capacity is the bottleneck. One kettle for thirty people fails at exactly the moment everyone wants it. Thermoses, filled downstairs, brought up.
- Take up more water than you think. Six hours of sun on a roof, and everyone is drinking chai and eating fried food. Water is what actually runs out.
- Plan the way down for rubbish. Trays, cups and bones accumulate fast on a surface people are walking backwards across while looking up. This is a safety point as much as a tidiness one.
If you are renting a roof
Ask whether food is included, because it changes the price substantially and the two are quoted very differently. A catered rooftop and a bare one are not comparable numbers — what roofs cost goes through the rest of it.
Frequently asked
What food is eaten at Basant?
Jalebi above all, with pakoras, samosas, haleem, gajrela, Kashmiri chai and barbecue after dark. Fried, portable food dominates because it is eaten standing on a roof.
What is the traditional Basant sweet?
Jalebi is the one most associated with the festival. Gajrela — carrot halwa — is the other, helped by Basant falling in carrot season.
What should I serve at a Basant rooftop party?
Fried snacks and jalebi through the afternoon, chai at sunset, then haleem and barbecue into the evening. Three phases, not one meal.
Can I cook on the roof during Basant?
Bring food up rather than frying on a crowded rooftop. Open cooking on a roof full of people moving backwards is a bad idea on its own terms, and the 2027 rules set limits on what is permitted up there.
What drink goes with Basant?
Kashmiri chai in the evening, and far more plain water during the day than most hosts plan for.
Kites, dor and everything that goes with them
The food is the easy half. The kites, cotton dor on QR-coded pinnay, gloves and tape are sold singly from Lahore at a published price — buy only what your roof needs. See the products and prices.
Selling is paused while our registration is suspended by the Punjab Government — see the notice. The products and prices stay published so you can plan, and we answer questions either way.
- Patang & gudda
- Cotton dor
- Pinnay
- Gloves
- Tape
- Delivery in Lahore