A fresh start

SANKRANTHI CELEBRATIONS

Festivals are not complete without a family gathering and some delectable food. ‘Makara Sankranthi’, which falls on January 15, is also one such festival which has certain traditions attached and is a day of thanksgiving and bonding.

For many like Shashwathi KN, an engineering student, it is a busy time as her family has a garment business in Malleswaram. “For the festival, we also sell ‘yellu bella’, groundnuts and jaggery at the shop and it gets really busy.

We also prepare the sugar candies at home,” she says. Personally, she says the focus of the day is to meet family. Her sister-in-law, Sowmya Shravan who has come from New York for the festival, says that she is looking forward to meeting her in-laws and their family. “It’s a new experience for me and I’m looking forward to celebrating the day. I want to have a lot of fun and be surrounded by family,” she says.

Others like Madhavi Shankar, a senior software engineer, say that married women have to follow certain traditions during this festival. “In the first five years of my marriage, I had to distribute things like five bananas, groundnuts, ‘avrakai’ to five elderly women. Every year, the number would increase by five,” she says.

She adds that homemade ‘yellu bella’ and ‘sakkare acchu’ in different shapes are given after the ‘puja’ to family and people who come home. “When handing them out, we wish them well and tell them to only speak sweet words after eating it,” she says. She says that the elders of the family usually hand these to the younger ones and that the festival is all about bonding.

Pooja K, an IT professional, says that this is the festival of thanksgiving and forgiveness. “As a child, I was told that ‘Makara Sankranthi’ is the day to start afresh and leave all bad experiences of the past year behind. Referring to the sun’s position on this day, it is believed that even the Sun god forgets his anger on his son ‘Shani’ and visits him during this day, so we have to let bygones be bygones. This is why the festival includes distributing sweets, so as to spread joy around,” she says.

For many, the festival brings back memories of kite flying. Priyanka SK, a teacher, says, “My cousins and I would gather at a playground near our house to fly kites. This is a tradition our parents used to follow.

Those days, we would fly kites early in the morning when the rays of the sun are sharp. Since one is more prone to infections during winter, this is a tradition created to expose oneself to the sun in a fun way,” she says. Priyanka adds that there are many other beliefs related to kite flying. She also plans to encourage her children to fly kites on the day.

Sujatha Sriram, who owns a paying guest accommodation, lists out the different items prepared on the festival. “‘Yellu bella’ (sesame seeds and jaggery), ‘sweet pongal’ and ‘khara pongal’ are a must on this day. Sweet pumpkin curry, sugar candies and ‘til chikkis’ are the other delights.
We also make boiled groundnuts and boiled sweet potatoes,” she says. Sujatha says that the most memorable items during this festival are the sugar candies. She says that since the festival falls in winter, eating sesame and jaggery which are warm foods, is considered beneficial to health. Sujatha says, “This is why this sweet is given to family and friends as it signifies good health.”

For the Telugites, the festival includes the traditional ‘bhogi’ where all the unwanted items are burnt the day before. “The next day, we offer ‘naivedya’ for ‘puja’, which includes sweet potato and sugarcane among other items. Afterwards, the sugarcane is consumed as juice or otherwise. This is symbolic of bringing sweetness in our lives,” explains Kamakshi, who hails from Vishakapatnam.

 A meal on the banana leaf is a tradition and consists of delights like four varieties of vegetable ‘palya’, ‘sweet pongal’, ‘khara pongal’, rice, ‘rasam’, ‘sambar’ and curd.