Of cars and lasses...

Car festival is one event which every member of the GSB community longs for. It is more of a feeling than an event. It is a gathering with people of all ages meet together at the famous Sri Venkatramana Temple of Car Street, Mangalore. The pious venerable junta gather for the sake of devotion to the deity and of course the mass feeding which includes the famous Dalitoi(Dal). The youngsters along with the devotion have some thing extra in mind!. The lasses adorned in mindboggling attire loitering around gracefully just make your senses go haywire. A few of them just leave us stupefied with awe that it takes quite a while for one to get the bearings right!

This festival has been celebrated from quite a lot of decades down the line, maybe from two to three hundred years. I did a bit of research and consulted some old timers about the significance of the festival.I discovered that one of the objectives of this gathering is for youngsters of opposite sexes to exchange glances and sneak peeks, a few of which end up in marriages in the near future! Quite sensible people, our ancestors. What else can be a better method for rounding up most of the members of the community! In addition to the sumptuous meals that are served in an elaborate and systematic manner, there are a huge number of food stalls that vend Konkani delicacies - Gulla Podi, Jeevkadgi Podi, Charmuri Upkari etc etc. This year's special attraction were those who sold heart-shaped balloons and the elusive 'balloons in a balloon'. (The latter looks interesting as it sounds and is an engineering marvel for the reason that it consists of a huge fully blown balloon that encloses two smaller fully blown balloons inside). These people kept on roaming the whole place and bugged almost each and every soul there to buy their goods. ( Including me of course! But I feel a bit old to dabble around with these balloon thingys).

The festival culminated today with the Okkul or the Holi. Colours fly everywhere. People dance with electrifying moves in sync to the music that blares out from the DJ's who play some famous disco numbers. And not to forget the Bhang which mainly sources the current that drives the junta. Each and every car festival has been special to me - new feelings, new people and new happenings. Will be eagerly waiting for the next year to partake in such a wonderful event once again.

Would like to quote from Ruskin Bond's The Eyes Are Not Here :
"Throw away the roses from the vase if you will, but the scent of the roses will linger still"

The wonderful feeling still lingers. Will cherish it for some time. :)