Kadale Beeja festival Bull temple Rd. “Auto ivathu Bull temple Rd athra baralla Bidi” said many a men riding their autos, untill the man of my need arrived in a vehicle with a green carcasses cladded with a sheet of black artificial leather and banded with an armour of aluminium frames. My Auto . ” Junction athra bidthini okna”. Thanks Anna said me and Aryan as we hopped into the Auto. Ten minutes ride from our house we arrived at a Bull temple Rd. The road was closed for traffic. People from all over town seemed to have flocked up to this simple mela which happens every year during the harvest season of the groundnuts.
Roasted, cooked, sauted or raw groundnuts covered the roads in so many colours and sizes. People from far off villages of Karnataka and Tamilnadu had made it to the Mela to sell their goods and produce. The crowd moved slowly as women bargained, men sulked and children were amused by the demon horns, fairy hairbands and air balloons. A moment of stillness experience – Holding Arya’s hand I close my eyes and I would hear a cacophony of the party horn,smell fried bajji , huge papad with masala smell, cooked corn , something sweet like carmalised sweet sugar .. what could that be … Let me guess A sugar candy , … As my thoughts continued..” Amma are you done … Can we go now, it’s looking wierd ” came a wake up call from Aryan in few seconds. We walked through the crowd as if it were a pilgrimage we had to finish to see the dawn of tomorrow. Loved the simplicity of the exhibition which reminded me of so many of these I had gone in my childhood. Today was the last day of the Mela. Next time you hear about it. Be here . You will take home some fun memories along with a variety of groundnuts.
Naturally Hema 