Come last week of Karthika month in the Hindu calendar, Bangaloreans become nostalgic and celebrate groundnut fair or Kadalekai Parishe which links past and the present. The fair symbolises agrarian links of cosmopolitan Bangalore which is truly an affair people wait to celebrate. The three-day fair began at Basavanagudi near bull temple in the heart of Information Technology City Bangalore on Monday, last day of Karthikamasa in the Hindu almanac.
The streets of Basavanagudi are full of heaps of groundnuts with swelling onlookers bringing back the old glory, a reminiscent of the past. Many feel Kadalekai Parishe is one of the last traditional links with the growing Bangalore otherwise known as IT City. Even though Bangalore has no agriculture people come from surrounding places and other States to sell groundnut and other interesting elements which is part of the fair.
Maya Jaideep, a senior Journalist and a documentary-maker feels it was great to see the traditional links of the past and making it happen in the changed world of Bangalore. She said, “I am here to celebrate the Kadalekai Parishe at Basavanagudi, a scene I always remember. This is one of the last links of Bangalore which we have to keep for the future.” Priyanka, an IT professional who is visiting the fair feels nice to show groundnuts fair to her four-year-old son who has not seen anything like this. For her it was a great link of the past to understand the agriculture and its symbiotic relations with the city like Bangalore.
Kadlekai Parishe has a history of over 500 years and according to the legend a bull - believed to be an incarnation of Shiva’s vehicle Nandi — kept destroying the groundnut crop at Hosakerehalli, Gavipura, Guttahalli, Sunkenahalli and Mavalli. Farmers in the area offered their harvest to appease the bull and thus the fair started on the last Monday of the month of Karthika. In 1537, Magadi Kempegowda the founder of Bangalore built the bull temple after which the road is named.