Sehar reports on the recent Guava Festival held at Khusaru Bagh, Allahabad, jointly organised by Sanchaari and the Uttar Pradesh Tourism Department.

The city lazily woke from its winter slumber and prepared to get back to work, after a short break. Sanchaari, in association with the Uttar Pradesh Tourism Department, gave Allahabad, a reason to celebrate, by organising a Guava Festival.

On January 9, this year, the long forgotten Mughal gardens of Khusrau Bagh came alive when thousands of people, from various sections of society, thronged to celebrate their love for the queen of fruits, Amrood (guavas).

The aim of the Guava Festival was twofold, guavas and Khusrau Bagh, Both seem to have been lost in oblivion.

The festival was inaugurated by the divisional commissioner, Rajan Shukla, with the ceremonious cutting of the ribbon. The commissioner, along with the district magistrate, Sanjay Kumar, took a walk through the stalls. The stalls installed in the festival ground exhibited not only guavas of various varieties but also displayed local cuisine, guava based food products, cakes and other items.

The Centre of Food Technology (CFT_, Institute of Professional Studies, University of Allahabad, in
collaboration with Poorva Pratishthan, had also put upa stall at the festival. The stall comprised of guava based food products made by Poorva and innovative recipes made by the students of CFT.

The students came forth with great enthusiasm and took part in the festival. Their preparations consisted of recipes, which were innovative and exquisite. All the recipes were with guava as the main ingredient. The palatable preparations made by the students were a hit amongst the visitors at the festival.

The flavour of local art and tradition got accentuated with the melodious voice of folk artists performing during the morning hours.

The excitement and fervour rose with the salad competition organised to encourage local people to use the fruit in a better and healthier way in their daily food.

Students from CFT were at their creative best on the festival day. They bagged all the three prizes for the salad competition.

Winners of the salad competition were:

First prize: Akansha Tiwari and Drishti Sharma

Second prize: Chitrangdha Seth and Pooja Singh

Third prize: Parul Srivastava and MA Firdaus

Amongst the other things, which added a flavour and essence of Allahabad to the festival was the Amrood ka Halwa, different varieties of guava (Safeda, Surkha, Chinese Amrood), homemade guava jelly, cake, candies, guava saplings, etc added to the celebrations.

Sehar Siddiqi

Sehar is a communication skills trainer, she has good experience in writing on various issues. She is a blogger, book writer and enthusiastic traveller. A native of Allahabad, she believes in experiencing the small things of life in a big way. Sehar likes to work in groups and learn new things. Her motto is to enjoy life in small packets.