“Every year, we celebrate Sankranthi with great enthusiasm and joy. In our village, Paalaguttapalle, it’s a four day festival. Today is the third day of Sankranthi and we call it as Eddula Pandaga. (cattle festival).

Like in other parts of the country, we also worship animals and seasonal harvest as we see spirituality in the very cowdung that enriches our fields. On this day, we wake up early in the morning, and clean our houses. All our cows, bulls and calves are bathed and decorated. After bathing, we scrape off the old paint and paint their horns with a new colour. Bindhis of turmeric and kumkum are applied on the forehead, back, tail and on the four legs.

Various grasses and herbs are collected and tied before the entrance of each house. The cattle are then fed the food from the leaves. A ball of cowdung, with eyes and nose fashioned on it, is placed there as the ‘Gauramma’. A Ragi sangati mudda ( semi solid ragi porridge ) is cooked for the cattle in the cowshed in a small pot and is placed on the leaves with turmeric and kumkum. A plate with burning camphor in it is circled before the cattle. The gavaramma is worshipped with camphor and incense sticks are stuck on it.

At dusk, we take the cows and bulls to a rocky area beyond the village while returning from grazing. Katava Rajudu, brother of the goddess Gangamma, is worshipped there. His silaa or sacred stone, set up by putting 3 rocks together, is surrounded by small rocks painted red and white with red mud and lime. Coconut, camphor, and talugu or food offerings are offered to it. The sitla kuppa or bonfire is lit there. This is also considered auspicious for the village, as the ‘oru daridram’, or the evil energy in the village would be purified. The cattle is taken there to see the sitla kuppa. The ash from the sitla kuppa is put on the heads of the cattle. Camphor is circled before them while they enter the house. A glass of rice collected from each family and ‘bellam prasadam’ (sweet jaggery rice) made on the banda would be distributed at night to all the houses in the vicinity. Eddulu Tharamatam (driving the bulls) is a much awaited bullock race, which is sometimes held here in our village. Later, we take the decorated bulls and calves on a procession.”

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