Go nutty at Kadalekai Parishe

Go nutty at Kadalekai Parishe
Deccan Herald

Mounds and mounds of groundnuts take centrestage at the Kadalekai Parishe, an annual festival unique to Bangalore, celebrated at the historical Bull Temple in Basavanagudi. The festival began on Monday and concludes on Tuesday.

Mounds and mounds of groundnuts take centrestage at the Kadalekai Parishe, an annual festival unique to Bangalore, celebrated at the historical Bull Temple in Basavanagudi. The festival began on Monday and concludes on Tuesday.

The humble peanut, also known as the poor man’s almond, is raised to an exalted status at this festival. The ambience distinctly resembles that of a village fair. The onslaught of technology has not changed this tradition. A long queue of devotees thronged the temple throughout the day taking turns to worship the sacred bull and to see the groundnuts.

Some devotees also visit the Shivabhakta Bedara Kannappa temple and Renuka Yellamma temple, a small shrine, both of which are located within the Bull temple premises. On their way home they buy a bagful of groundnuts. A few families have a ‘groundnut picnic’ at the park adjacent to the temple.

The groundnut comes in various shades -- this is because they are either raw, boiled, roasted or salted. Some sell blocks of jaggery along with the groundnut. Groundnut is ‘Ying’ (hot) and jaggery is ‘Yang’ (cool) and they should be consumed together to strike a balance. The demography of the groundnut seller has changed over the years. There are a lot of groundnut growers and sellers who have come from Dharmapuri, the neighbouring horticulture district of Tamil Nadu. There is no rivalry among the groundnut sellers as each one of them wait for the customer destined for him. The selling rate is uniform, Rs 10 per litre (an aluminium measure with one litre capacity). Chinnaswamy from Dharmapuri has been coming here for the festival for the past 10 years. “A bag of 110 litres of groundnut sells at Rs 1,000 in the market,” he said.

No excuse

There is no excuse for those who do not like groundnut. There is sugar-coated grams, puffed rice, tapioca wafers and other fried crispies. The rose pink, bright yellow and snow white piles of sugar candies are another traditional favourite. The students of the nearby BMS College have a marked preference for salted and fried crispies.