Mysuru: With women and children dressed in traditional attires visiting temples in the morning and distributing ‘Yellu-Bella’ to friends and relatives in the evening, Mysureans celebrated Makara Sankranti (Harvest Festival), the first festival of the year with traditional fervour and gaiety.

As part of the festival, people visited various temples in city and offered puja to the cattle besides offering them fodder. Houses were decorated with mango leaves and a few streets were decked up with rangoli.

Members of various organisations, in a bid to bring in peace and harmony, distributed ‘Yellu-Bella’ to people of other communities who too joined in celebrating Sankranti. Sweets were also distributed among Muslim brethren, who had come to offer prayers at a mosque in city.

At Siddalingapura: But all eyes were on Siddalingapura, a village on Bengaluru-Mysuru Highway, where villagers decorated their cattle and took them in a procession accompanied by folk artistes of Devara Kunita and Dollu Kunita around the village. The cattle were later made to jump on the fire, a significant ritual which was the cynosure of all eyes. As dusk set in, the villagers brought their decorated cattle and even sheep near the village’s Eshwara Temple on the Highway, where fire was set to small hay stacks placed on the road. The cattle were then made to jump over the hay stacks which were set on fire while hundreds of people including foreigners watched. Some villagers carried sheep on their shoulders and jumped over the fire.

The previous day, villagers, who bathed their cattle, decorated them by painting their horns and applying turmeric on them. While some had decorated their oxen by placing the map of India made of colourful flowers, some sheep were painted with tri-colour giving the festival a patriotic touch, a sheep rearer had fixed an attachment to his Bandur Sheep and came riding on it.

Shutterbugs and foreign tourists were found busy clicking pictures of decorated cattle and cattle jumping over fire.