Bengaluru celebrates Makara Sankranti

Makara Sankranti, the festival of harvest, was celebrated with much fervour on Tuesday.

Right from drawing colourful rangolis, decking up houses with mango leaves and offering puja to the cattle, the city wore a rich festive look.

As a part of the traditional ritual, people were seen offering prayers and visited temples in large numbers. Women and children, dressed in their traditional attires, were seen exchanging festive greetings among their neighbours, friends and relatives, by distributing ‘ellu-bella’, a mixture of sesame seeds, groundnuts, roasted gram, coconut and jaggery. Many were seen preparing ‘Pongal’, the traditional festive dish for Sankranthi.

Members of the Karnataka Rakshana Vedike celebrated the festival by smearing turmeric on cows. They even made cows jump across the haystack, as a part of the ritual.

Meanwhile, members from Nandi Kannada Seva Samithi had also organised a similar programme, along with the occasion of the 6th year remembrance of Bala Gangadharnatha Swami near the Sri Nagar bus stop. People were seen thronging to temples as many of them had organised special pujas. Going a step ahead, civic workers cleared 400 garbage blackspots and drew rangoli on them.