The city is gearing up to celebrate Makar Sankranti on Saturday. Markets in the city are decked up even as educational institutes are organising melas to mark the occasion.

Maharani Ammanni College, Malleswaram, is one such college. About 4,500 students of the institute took part in Sankranti-Janapada Habba on Thursday.

This is for the fourth consecutive year that the college organised the fest. Like every year, this year, too, the students came dressed in traditional clothes and decked up the college, giving it a rural ambience.

Manjunath C, Kannada lecturer at the college, said the current generation has lost touch with tradition and local culture. The Habba started at the college to give a feel of rural India to the students and now it has become a regular event, with students taking part in it in large numbers. Subramanya Swamy, Kannada lecturer at the college, said they organise a vegetable fair, where students bring and sell vegetables in large quantity. He said the students mostly bring those vegetables that are predominantly found in villages.

It was the food fair at the college, replete with Karnataka’s local dishes, that was the biggest hit. Navya, a BCom student of the college, said they prepare items such as ragi mudde, bass saru (sambar made of leafy vegetables and lentils), ragi roti, jolad roti (corn roti), idikida avarekai sambar, chakli and paddu at home and bring them to the college. She said some items, such as obbittu and rotis, are prepared at the habba itself and served hot. At the habba, the students also exchange the traditional yellu bella (sesame and jaggery).

Markets are all decked up. Besides educational institutes, markets at Basavanagudi and Malleswaram, too, are geared up for the festival. Almost the entire Gandhi Bazaar and Malleswaram Eighth Cross are decked up and are full of shoppers. Pushpa R, a homemaker who had gone to Malleswaram Eighth Cross for shopping, said the market was the best place to shop during festivities, adding that it looks incomplete unless it is decked up.

In Basavanagudi, sugarcane, jaggery, dry coconuts, plantains and plantain leaves are selling like hot cakes. Rajkumar, a shopowner at Basavanagudi, said this year, shopowners have made packets of yellu bella for those who do not have time to prepare the mixture at home.

Source: DNA, Jan 13, 2012