The Hindu : Kerala News : A time for nostalgia

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Oct 20, 2006
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Kerala

Kerala

A time for nostalgia

There is something special about Deepavali in Kozhikode, a city that boasts of a sizable population of Gujarati and other North Indian communities.

An indefinable nostalgia pervades the city during Deepavali, with sweetshop owners churning out mounds of festival delicacies.

Old timers have happy memories of the festival when traditional Deepavali sweets used to come packed in neatly woven bamboo baskets known `muttai kotta' with a profusion of the Gujarati sweet varieties such as `jelebis,' `ladoos' and `masoor pav.'

Packing of sweets in bamboo baskets had to be done away with more than 30 years ago, when these baskets could not be procured easily, said a sweetshop owner on S.M. Street.

In fact, the Sweet Meat Bazaar in Kozhikode takes its name after the sweets (associated most with Deepavali).

The street, to be given a facelift as a heritage street, was once lined up with sweetshops set up by Gujarati traders. Many sweetshops had, since, shifted from the street.

And the Deepavali sweet boxes now have other sweet varieties too, besides ladoo and jelebi.

Maleeha Raghaviah

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