Ours is a country known for its festive fervour and glory what with the colours, lights, food and feelings of warmth and togetherness that come alive at such occasions. Similarly, the festival of harvest, Sankranti is usually celebrated by families across the state with colourful kites, numerous home-made sweet treats, mesmerising muggulu and the haridasu and gangireddu (decorated bull).
However, these very aspects of our cultural heritage seem to be fading away with the passage of time. Take for example the visits by the Haridasu men, dressed in kaleidoscopic attires, accompanied by equally colourful gangidreddu, which is rare to spotthese days.
Moreover, even the more common traditions of families getting together to fly kites and eat festive food has reduced a great deal.
On the occasion of Sankranti, we talk to a few people from the city about our festive heritage.
Dr B. Janardhan Reddy, GHMC Commissioner: Telugu traditions have a wide horizon. There are numerous traditions that are evolving from social structure, lifestyle and place of origin or location. Sankranti, a festival of harvest which is celebrated with fervor across Andhra Pradesh and Telangana State is losing its traditions like gangireddulu, gobbemmalu, nuvvula rottelu, sakinalu, etc.
Tammareddy Bharadwaja, Producer and director: The idea of celebrating Sankranti in a traditional way itself is lost. As I am born and brought up here, I can see the differences. Muggulu, pindivantalu, and even patangulu gobbemmalu, Haridasulu etc., are all fading. Everything has become so artificial. Earlier, parents used to cook everything, now it’s all ready-made. They used to clean the house with cow dung, but not anymore. Even kite flying is not seen much. Now, people go to kite festivals, instead of flying with family and friends on the terrace.
Vandana Badruka, Founder and coordinator of Kalpataru: In our childhood days, we would spend time making our own kites and the manja in a special way so that we could cut as many kites as possible. The excitement of cutting someone’s kite was immense. Having grown up in Maharashtra, we used to go to all friends’ and acquaintances’ houses and distribute til gud laddus. And we would say, til gud ghya aani gud gud bola. It translates to ‘Take this til gud and talk sweet’. Earlier, a lot of poor people would come home, and ingredients of khichdi were distributed. It’s said in our scriptures that Sankranti is a very auspicious day for Anna daan. This is a tradition that kids of today do not know about.
Jaya Beheti, Artist and entrepreneur : We follow all traditions very keenly and with lots of energy. We have not forgotten the past and we are the combination of today and yesterday, so am glad to see both sides. I think people used to visit homes and make ghewer, feni, sesame laddu and haldi kumkum is becoming really rare. We visit our friends and relatives with til gud and give it to each other. Celebrating life this way is real fun.
