Diwali in Belagavi has always smelled like ghee, cardamom and the hot, joyous hiss of things being fried. For many households the festival doesn’t begin on the night of lights — it begins weeks earlier, on a plan. The plan is called faral: a careful, joyful, slightly chaotic inventory of sweets and savories made at home, packed into dabbas, boxed and shared with neighbours, friends and guests. Faral used to be a neighbourhood project; today it’s a residence of memory, habit, commerce — and adaptation.
Below I tell that story: the old map (how it used to be), the new map (how it’s changing), and the long list of faral items — the names, the small descriptions — so we don’t lose what made the season taste like Belagavi.
The old map: faral as a village-sized cooking party
Making faral at home was never a solo job. Mothers were, and are, the festival HR: they estimate quantities for family, for guests, for the neighbour who will bring sweets in exchange. The faral calendar is laid out like a project plan — a day for frying karanjis in one house, a day for rolling laddoos in another, a day for making the chiwda and roasting peanuts.
Roles are distributed naturally. The aunties who can make perfect puran for karanji do that and send the filling over. Others man the large kadai for frying; apprentices — the younger women and girls — stand ready with spatulas, help roll, fold and strain. There’s gossip and songs between tasks, small pranks, and a lot of tasting. Kids are drafted into useful jobs: pinching and folding karanjis, stacking the cooling laddoos, arranging sweets in rows, and of course the essential role of snack-quality control — a hurried nibble or two between tasks.
The result: dabbas and tins, stacked and labelled, ready to be passed from home to home. Sharing faral is more than charity; it’s a ritual of acknowledgement — a way of saying “we are part of each other’s festivals.”
The new map: vendors, packaged tins, and the rise of the faral home industry
Change has arrived gently and quickly. Time pressures, smaller households, and the convenience economy have created a market for ready-made faral. Vendors — from street sellers to organized cottage industries — now produce large batches of karanji, chivda, chakli, laddoos and more, selling them in neat tins or cellophane packets. Social media has amplified this: a well-photographed tin of mixed faral travels fast on WhatsApp and Instagram, and seasonal entrepreneurs (often women running small units from home) scale up production to supply neighbourhoods and cities.
What this brings:
Convenience for busy families — you can buy a full box rather than assemble a dozen items.
Professionalization — consistent shapes, shelf-stable packaging, attractive tins.
New livelihoods — women turning seasonal skill into income, supplying offices and export orders.
A trade-off — less of the communal, noisy kitchen experience. Yet many families keep at least one home-made item — the signature karanji or the grandmother’s besan laddoo — preserving a personal touch.
So faral today is a hybrid: a purchased tower of treats beside a favourite pot of home-cooked karanji.
The faral list — names you’ll hear in Belagavi homes (and beyond)
Different communities serve different items; faral mixes sweet and savoury, and every item carries a memory. Below are many names — familiar and less-known —
Sweets
Karanji, Besan Ladoo, Rava Ladoo, Motichoor / Boondi Ladoo, Kaju Katli, Coconut (Nariyal) Burfi / Pista Burfi / Milk Burfi, Shankarpali / Shakarpara, Chiroti, Anarsa, Surli Poli (Chavde), Dink Ladu, Balushai,
Savories & Crunch
Chiwda (Poha Chivda), Maka Chiwda, Sev, Chakli / Chakri (Murukku), Kodubale / Kodbale, Bhakrwadi, Mixture / Chiwda Mix, Tikhat Shankarpali,
How faral-making actually happens — the choreography
The plan: dates are fixed. One house handles karanji today; another does laddoos tomorrow.
The team: cooks, fryers, fillers, wrappers and little hands — everyone has a job.
The pace: some items are made fresh on the festival day; many are prepared, cooled and stored days before.
The packing: tins, glass jars, greased dabbas; the ritual final step where a home’s love is boxed.
The sharing: deliveries to relatives, neighbours, offices — a social ledger of gratitude.
What’s lost — and what we keep
Buying faral saves time but sometimes dilutes story: the home kitchen’s laughter, a child’s pride at folding the first karanji, the whispered recipe tweaks passed along. Yet the change has silver linings: women-run micro-factories, hygienically packed options for elderly relatives, and more variety on the table than a single family could produce.
The modern middle-class Diwali in Belagavi often looks like this: a signature home-made item (karanji? besan ladoo?) sitting next to a vendor’s neatly packed tin.
Faral Sharing Traditions
- Dabba Exchange: Neighbours swap steel boxes of homemade sweets and snacks.
- Community Bond: Every lane knows whose karanji is crispest and whose chiwda is best.
- Children’s Joy: Little hands sneak sweets, help fold karanjis, and proudly guard tins “For Guests.”
- Modern Twist: Many now buy from home vendors, fueling a thriving local cottage industry.
In the old days, neighbours exchanged faral in large steel taats (plates), a beautiful symbol of sharing and community. The friendly rivalry was all about who made the crispiest karanji, the perfectly shaped bhajani chakli, or the golden anarse — each a test of patience and skill. Inviting friends and relatives over for faral was a Diwali tradition in itself. And once the festival sweets were done, the menu shifted to spicy usal or misal — a welcome change of flavour. In those times, your social standing could almost be judged by the sweets you received — from humble soan papdi to the elite kaju katli!
A last scoop of nostalgia
Kids from middle-class homes learn the festival’s true grammar early: cooking, sharing, stealing a sweet when no one’s looking and proudly declaring the box for “guests.” Maybe that’s why Belagavi raises so many foodies — we are trained at a young age to value texture, timing and the politics of sharing. Mother knows the right quantities; aunties know who to call; the lane knows whose karanji is the crispest. Even if the times change, the dabbas still move from hand to hand, and the festival still tastes like belonging.
So this Diwali, whether you buy a tin from a vendor or fold karanjis with your siblings, keep the ritual alive: make one thing at home, share it widely, and tell the story of how you made it. That, after all, is the sweetest part of the faral.
Inputs Swatee Jog, Mandar Kolhapure