A gala time for Andhrawalas

Vijayawada: It was a memorable and joyful three-day break for lakhs of Telugu families living in Andhra Pradesh as they celebrated Makara Sankranti festival from January 14 to 16.

The first day was observed as Bhogi followed by the main festival Sankranti and the last day as Kanuma by worshipping the cattle, which plays very vital role in agriculture and rural economy.

Telugus living in faraway places and other states and districts re-joined with their families at their native places and enthusiastically celebrated the festival.

With increasing urbanization and decrease of rural culture, the festival is gradually changing from the festival of harvest to the festival of reunion of family members. With increase of transport facilities like cars, buses, trains, lakhs of families came to Andhra Pradesh from Telangana, Mumbai and other places for Sankranti this year.

The elderly people rejoiced the festival season by welcoming their children and grandchildren. Districts like West Godavari, East Godavari, Krishna and a few other districts witnessed cockfights and Gundala (card game). Women were busy preparing variety of recipes and food items. Though compared to the past, the number of items prepared at home this year was on decline. This has helped home food centres, sweet shops to have brisk business.

Many people spent the three days visiting their agriculture lands, mango orchards, horticulture crops and other places in the villages and recollected their childhood memories.

Women and girls enjoyed the Rangoli drawings and children had good time as they rarely get to see the rural atmosphere and open lands to play.

Even Haridasus are slowly vanishing. The number of Gangireddulu (Decorated bulls) has also reduced. They were meant to teach the importance of donating rice and clothes as this is the season when farmers get good crop and income.

But the importance of Sankranti and the reasons of various activities and their significance is not being taught and everything has become a ritual and show more for social media like YouTube and Instagram.

The tradition in Andhra is that the newly-wed couples go to the girl's house for Sankranti. In Eluru, one family served 360 varieties of food items to the son-in-law. The menu included over 21 varieties of ice cream, different varieties of rice and so on. In Bhimavaram, another family served 170 varieties, and all this was uploaded on YouTube and was picked up by news channels.