Mixed memories of ‘ellu bella’

We can continue to celebrate festivals thanks to ready-made ellu belas.

The golden days of our lives are undoubtedly our childhood, a sentiment shared by most. This year’s Shankranthi prompted me to reflect on this. I remember all the excitement of ellu-bella (sesame-jaggery) preparation in my mother’s grandmother’s house. It was a joint family, and the elaborate process began nearly a month before the festival. Each lady in the family had the responsibility of preparing one ingredient for the ellu bella.

The youngest of the women in the family meticulously chopped acchu bella (jaggery cubes) with precision, ensuring each little piece was shaped and sized identically. Ground nuts were roasted evenly, skinned, and split into two, and only the finest of the nuts would make the cut for the final mix.

Similar stringent measures were used for hurigadale (roasted Bengal gram). Allow the math teacher in me to explain: each hurigadale must have a clean surface area of a sphere and should be exactly half that of the sphere. The kobbari (dry coconut) was skinned finely until it resembled an igloo. It was then diced into perfect cubes by another family member. The ellu was roasted gently. And the finest of all these ingredients were mixed together a few days before the festival. 

But, for us, the highlight was the day when all the women gathered to make kgs of Sakkare acchu, sugar candies—the best sweet of our childhood. A gang of girls, including myself, my sisters, and cousins, would gather around to witness the art of moulding sugar syrup into innumerable shapes. Our grandmother, who believed Makkalu Devara Samana (children are God’s incarnation)—though we waited like devils for our share—generously distributed the pieces of the first acchu among us. The first bite of hot, creamy acchu melted in our mouths in a second. Then our demand for ‘just one more piece’ would go on until our mom and aunts threw us out of the kitchen. 

Now things have changed as most of us opt for convenience. Thank God for the ready-made ellu bella available in Bengaluru’s Gandhibazar, Malleshwaram, and other areas, we can continue to celebrate festivals.

Personally, while we exchanged greetings on WhatsApp and uploaded pictures of the ellu-bella to our status, many of us have yet to meet in person and exchange the real ellu-bella. Lost in thought, I simply told my son, “I don’t know if we can make it before Rathasaptami this year.” (Traditionally, we have time till Rathasaptami to exchange the mixture.)

The little fellow quipped, “Take a chill pill, amma. Just Swiggy or Dunzo
it all.” I laughed out loud, but the thought persisted: social media got us to socialise online and disconnect emotionally offline.