The NRIs who visited their native places during the Sankranti festival carried loads of their favourite mouth-watering traditional sweets along with them.
“Many customers made advance bookings for ariselu, nethi ariselu, sunnandulu, putarekulu, kobbariundalu, kaja, basin laddu, thokkudu laddu, Kakinada kaja, ravva laddu and Tapeswaram kaja and other sweets. Besides loose sales, we receive orders in bulk for 15 kg and above,” said a sweet stall owner Satthibabu of Narsapuram in West Godavari district.
Owners of the sweet stalls engaged additional workers for preparing the sweets. “Women preparing ‘p utarekulu’ (paper sweets) in the East and West Godavari districts have done brisk business particularly in Atreyapuram village. Putarekulu made of jaggery powder, sugar, jaggery mixed with sugar, dry fruits and ghee have good demand,” said a supplier Bujji. Traders supplied nuvvula ariselu, nethi ariselu and sunnundalu to stalls in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Tirupati, Chennai, Vijayawada and other cities, Mr. Bujji, a native of Veeravasaram, said. “My son is staying in the U.S. and is fond of sunnundalu . He came for the festival and we packed five kg of the sweet for him and his friends,” said V. Satyanarayana of Kailakur of Krishna district.
“Recently, my daughter was married to an NRI and they could not come for the festival. We are planning to send Andhra sweets with her friend, who is here for Sankranti,” said K. Usha of Bhimavaram. Grandparents ensured that their dear ones in distant lands had the delicacies. Gannavaram Airport Director G. Madhusudhan Rao said many people carryied sweets in domestic and international flights. “There was no restriction on carrying sweets but not in handbags. However, different flight companies have different permissible quantities,” he said.
