One out of five people you come across in Kolkata have one common weakness. There is an advertent desire to satisfy their sweet tooth! Most people in Kolkata are forever fond of sweets. In every lane, you find a sweet shop operating in full swing, because that is probably the most profitable business in the city and a business that is never going out of demand. To encourage sweetmeat sellers and keep up with the sweet-a-holic crowds, every year the ‘Pithe-Pooli Utsav’ which is a well-known sweet festival or the ‘Misti Utsav’ in Kolkata is held near Rajdanga in South Kolkata.
This is a great initiative taken up by Councillor Susanta Ghosh. The festival now in it’s 8th year has managed to gain a lot of prominence among the Bengali community and non-Bengalis who love sweets too. Sweetmeat sellers are mostly people coming from small towns or other cities. The 5 day event was a big hit amongst everyone.
Why This Festival Is Popular:
The positive part of having this festival is that people from across West Bengal come here to witness the event, just like a mini religious festival. “We get these stalls free of cost. All we have to do is, get all the food and come here to set up the stall. Rest everything is taken care of. I stay here near Tribarna, but what is most interesting is that, people come here and rent places during the 5 days just to attend this festival”, says Sampa Ghosh Nandi who had her stall of “Patishapta” and “Pithe” and lots more.
“I have been coming here for the past 8 years and I think it’s a big opportunity for people to showcase their talent of making sweets. I asked the Councillor of the ward if I could get my relatives from Murshidabad since they are experts at making “Chocolate Pathisapta”. He immediately made a stall for them and invited them over.” said Partha Sarathi Mitra who came for the festival with his relatives from Murshidabad district.
She adds, “It feels great to see that more than 80 stalls are existing and each stall is doing extremely well. What makes this all the more special is that the smiling faces of all the visitors at every stall” Added Mitra.
The 5 day festival not only featured a variety of sweet stalls, but had a number of famous musicians light up the event from dawn to dusk. It was a combination of good food and music. What more can you ask for?
Why They Love The Sweets:
“The food is fresh and we make the dishes every day. One difficulty which we face nowadays is that, the number of stalls are going up every year and has reached 80 this year. As a result, not many stalls had huge visitors since the crowd was more spread out now. Most of the sweets we made had to be taken back. So we prepared small quantities. However, this festival keeps calling us back because people love sweets and we love to make it for them. ”, says Bijoli Ghosh from Santoshpur who was busy setting up the stall.
“We love to come here every year with my family. They love sweets and we can get a variety of food at a reasonable rate. This happens once in a year, but we hope that it happens twice in a year, so that these festivals can keep our sugar levels high always!” Said an excited visitor munching on ‘Dudh Puli’.
