Sankranthi- the harvest festival at Mysore

MYSORE: For Mysoreans, preparations for Sankranti, the festival of harvest, started as early as a week ago. Elders at home prepared largely served and exchanged 'ellu-bella', a mixture of white sesame seeds, fried groundnut, finely-cut copra and jaggery. Married women, young women and girls come together to prepare the special mixture.

Anasuya Muralidhar, a resident of Yadavagiri here, started preparations a fortnight ago. "Preparation needs a lot of patience. Jaggery and coconut have to be cut in same size. With none to help me in this, I started working on the mixture a fortnight ago," she added.

On the eve of Sankranti, women mop the verandah and drew huge rangoli designs in front of their houses -- a sign of welcoming the festival. MBA student Bhavana Basavraju said that they cleaned and decorated their house for the festival.

On the D-Day, girls visit their near and dear ones, offering 'ellu-bella' along with sugar cane, banana and 'skkare achchu' (sugar candies) in a tray. The candies are either prepared at home or bought from shops.

Kusuma Shankar said that they, while they were young, used to visit every house in the street in groups to offer ellu-bella. "My younger sister continues to do so. But I visit only relatives and friends now."

In areas like KG Koppal, where majority of milkmen reside, cows are decorated for the occasion. The practice of making cows cross pyre is still followed in this area.

FLOWERS, FRUITS PINCH POCKETS

Sankranti, also being shoppers' favourite, results in good business for traders. The rise in the prices of fruits, flowers and other articles has not dampened the Mysoreans' festive spirit. Traders made brisk business since morning at Devaraja Market on Sunday. People were seen bargaining over the rates of groundnut, flowers, banana and sakkare achchu.

Veena Satyanarayana from Hebbal, who had come with her husband for shopping, paid Rs 50 each for full two stalks of sugarcane and 1kg banana. She said: "I was busy and could not prepare ellu-bella. Now the vendors have increased the prices. I don't want to compromise with festivities."

Some shops sold ellu-bella mixture while others sold sugar candies, ellu, bella, groundnut and other grams in separate packets.

Manjunath, a flower vendor, said that this is the time for them to make money. The prices of flowers and fruits have doubled when compared with any other day. For four cubit length of flower is being sold for anywhere between Rs 50 and Rs 60.

Nagendra Kumar, an employee at revenue department, said the festival cannot go well without flowers and fruits. "We are forced to buy them," he added.