Sankranthi

 Hi Friends

Wishing all my friends and viewers a very Happy Sankranthi. I know you and your family are eagerly waiting  about the specials to be prepared  for the festival Sankranti. All this week I have been sharing some mouth watering and delicious dishes in connection with the biggest festival SANKRANTI and most of us called it as PEDDAPANDUGA. First let us know briefly about this festival.

Sankrati is a harvest festival celebrated in India. As the God Sun enters into 'Makara Rasi' it is also called Makara SAnkranti. Generally  it falls on 14 th January  every year. This festval is celebrated differently in different parts of the country. 1st day Bhogi, 2nd day is Sankranti and 3rd is Kanuma. It is a big event in Andhra Pradesh, so it is called as Pedda Panduga.

It is celebrated getting up early in the morning before sun rise, take head bath, wearing new clothes and worship the rising sun with folding hands for the blessings of the God. It is good to gives Danam on this day to some one. Pongal signals the end of the traditional farming season and the festival for farming community. In the beginning of the year in January paddy, sugar cane and pulses will be harvested. Farmers would be full of happiness.

The first day on Bhogi  in the morning early hours, old material are thrown away and fired to bid fare to winter. In this festival time, the front of house (vakili) is cleaned and rangolis are put by women, cow dung mudda was decorated with pumpkin flower(gummadi puvvu) and tangedi flowers and put on the center of the rangoli. In the evening Bogipandlu i.e. mix of regu pandlu, sugarcane pieces  and coins mixed together and poured on the children head and blessed for their well wish.

On the Pongal day food is prepared with new rice, milk  and sugar or jaggery in new pots. Mostly this celebrated in villages by the farmers. In villages  the villagers celebrated cock fights (Kodi pandelu)  in the evening.

The last day Kanuma is a festival for cattle is also called as Pasuvula Panduga. All most all cattle are decorated with flowers in the neck and colourful painting to horns and races are conducted for bulls. In our in-law's place, a village in Chittor dist. we have enjoyed a lot  with this type of races and drawing rangolis etc. It takes 2 to 3 hours for us to draw rangoli  with rice flour or lime stone powder and colouring them colourfully. My sisters in-law draw wonderful rogolis . We generally finish the rangoli in night time only. These are all our sweet memories.

Indians love to celebrate festivals as it is our culture. Many families arrenge doll show (bommala koluvu) on these festival days and invite friends and relatives in the evening. After finishing this bommala koluvu, my mother in-law used to pack all the dolls carefully and kept in big boxes and kept in in the store room. We are having so many traditional dolls in our house.