Kadalekai Parishe 2026: Your Survival Guide to Bengaluru's 500-Year-Old Groundnut Fair

“Bengaluru has malls, metros and a startup on every floor. Once a year, it still stops everything to say thank you to a bull for the groundnuts.”

• Tariq Sallam, on the city's most delicious tradition

Every year, around the time the evenings in Bengaluru turn properly cool, a small miracle happens in Basavanagudi. Bull Temple Road, normally a polite stretch of old homes, temples and filter coffee, disappears under mountains of groundnuts. Farmers arrive from Magadi, Tumakuru, Ramanagara and Chikkaballapur, the air smells of roasting shells, and roughly half a million people come to buy a seru of peanuts they could have bought at the corner shop. Nobody cares. That is not the point.

This is Kadalekai Parishe, the groundnut fair, and it is one of the oldest street festivals in the city. Local accounts trace it back to the sixteenth century, around the time Kempe Gowda was founding Bengaluru. It began as a thank-you from farmers to the stone Nandi at Dodda Basavana Gudi, and it has survived kings, the British, the IT boom and the arrival of quick commerce. Respect.

I have put together everything you need for the 2026 edition: when it is expected (spoiler: later than last year), what is worth buying, how to reach Basavanagudi without a parking meltdown, the plastic rules that can cost you Rs 2,000, and the slightly bonkers legend behind the whole thing. Official dates are announced only a few weeks ahead, so I will update this page when they land.

When Is Kadalekai Parishe 2026?

Kadalekai Parishe 2026 is expected around Monday 7 December 2026, because the fair is tied to the last Monday of the Kannada month of Karthika, and this year Karthika runs from about 10 November to 8 December. The official dates and the number of days are announced by the Muzrai department and the temple, usually two to three weeks before the fair.

If you went last year and are already planning for mid-November, I understand the confusion. The Kannada lunar calendar does not line up neatly with the one on your phone, and 2026 had an extra month (an adhika masa) earlier in the year, which pushed Deepavali and everything after it later. Deepavali fell on 8 November this year, so Karthika and the parishe slide into December.

• 2025: 17 to 21 November, the first time the Basavanagudi fair was stretched to five days to spread out the crowds.
• 2026: expected around 7 December, with stalls likely to open a day or two before. Several festival calendars list 5 to 8 December, but treat that as a guide until the official announcement.
• Malleswaram: the north Bengaluru groundnut fair runs separately, usually a little earlier. In 2025 it was held from 8 to 10 November.

What Is Kadalekai Parishe and Why Is It Held?

Kadalekai Parishe is a harvest-thanksgiving fair where farmers offer the first groundnuts of the season to Basava, the Nandi bull at Dodda Basavana Gudi, and then sell the rest of their crop on the streets around the temple. Kadalekai means groundnut in Kannada and parishe means fair.

It started when the area around Basavanagudi was still farmland, long before the neighbourhood of today was laid out. The farmers who grew groundnuts here made a vow to share their first harvest with the bull, and the tradition never stopped, even after the fields turned into roads and houses.

The Legend of the Groundnut-Eating Bull

The story goes like this. A bull kept raiding the groundnut fields on full-moon nights, and the angry farmers finally chased it up the rocky hill where the temple stands today. The bull vanished, and in its place they found a stone Nandi that kept growing. To stop it, a peg was driven into its head. The farmers took the hint, promised the first harvest to the bull every year, and built the temple.

The Nandi inside is a single granite monolith, around 15 feet tall and 20 feet long, and it is one of the most impressive things in the city. Local tradition also says Basava comes out on the last night of the fair to eat the groundnut shells left on the street. It is the only time in Bengaluru I have heard of litter being blamed on a god rather than a neighbour.

“A bull eats your crop, you chase it, it turns into stone, and five hundred years later you are still bringing it snacks. Peak Bengaluru hospitality.”

• Tariq Sallam

What Can You Buy at Kadalekai Parishe?

Groundnuts in every form you can imagine are the main event: raw, boiled, roasted in sand, salted and still in their muddy shells straight from the field, usually sold by the seru (a traditional measure) or by weight. Around them is a full village fair of snacks, sweets, toys and trinkets.

• Fresh groundnuts: the reason you came. Farmers from Magadi, Tumakuru, Ramanagara and Chikkaballapur, plus growers from Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu, bring their stock. Buy a bag of the raw, shelled-at-home kind for chutney and another of the roasted kind for eating on the walk.
• Boiled groundnuts: hot, salty and sold in paper cones. The best snack of the fair, in my very serious opinion.
• Groundnut sweets: kadlekai chikki (brittle), peanut laddoos and kadlekai holige if you find a stall making them.
• Street food: bajji, bonda, churmuri, coloured sugar candy, kalyana seve and sugar-coated gram. Plus the neon fizzy drinks every child will demand.
• Fair stuff: bangles, clay toys, wooden toys, balloons, kitchen tools, henna and enough plastic whistles to annoy an entire apartment block.

How Do You Get to Kadalekai Parishe in Basavanagudi?

Take the Namma Metro Green Line to National College or Lalbagh station and walk 10 to 15 minutes to Bull Temple Road. During the fair, Bull Temple Road is closed to traffic and the surrounding roads are diverted, so the metro is by far the least painful option.

• Metro: National College or Lalbagh on the Green Line. From National College, walk down towards Bull Temple Road; from Lalbagh, exit via the Basavanagudi side.
• BMTC bus: plenty of routes run to Basavanagudi, Gandhi Bazaar and National College. Expect slow going near the fair.
• Auto or cab: ask to be dropped at National College or Gandhi Bazaar and walk in. Do not ask the driver to take you to the temple gate; he will laugh, and he will be right.
• Car: only if you must. In 2025, parking was arranged at National College Ground, APS College Ground, Sai Ranga Ground and Kohinoor Ground. Diversions covered Ramakrishna Ashrama Road, Narayanaswamy Road, Seetharamaiah Road and 50 Feet Road in Hanumanthanagar. Check the Bengaluru Traffic Police advisory for 2026 before you leave.

What Are the Plastic Rules at Kadalekai Parishe?

Kadalekai Parishe is a plastic-free event, and in 2025 the Greater Bengaluru Authority warned that anyone caught using plastic bags or littering could be fined up to Rs 2,000, with marshals deployed to enforce it. Expect the same or stricter rules in 2026.

• Carry a cloth bag: groundnuts are heavy and paper cones tear. In 2025, volunteers swapped plastic bags for cloth bags for Rs 2, but do not count on finding them.
• Shells go in bins: or in your bag until you find one. Leave the street-shell offering to the bull.
• Steel bottle: drinking water points are usually set up, so refill instead of buying plastic bottles.

What Else Happens During Kadalekai Parishe?

Beyond the stalls, the fair opens with special pujas at Dodda Basavana Gudi and a procession of decorated bulls, and the temples are lit up for days. In 2025 there was also a Teppotsava (float festival) on Kempambudhi Lake and evening music, comedy and Bharatanatyam programmes at Bugle Rock Park.

• Bull Temple and Dodda Ganapathi: both are right next to the fair. Queues are long on the main day, so go early morning if you want darshan.
• Bugle Rock Park: the granite outcrop behind the temple, with one of Kempe Gowda's watchtowers. A good spot to escape the crowd for ten minutes.
• Lights after dark: the decorative lighting along the temple streets is the best reason to come back in the evening.
• Food nearby: Basavanagudi's old breakfast spots, from Vidyarthi Bhavan to the coffee bars around Gandhi Bazaar, are all within walking distance. Expect queues.

When Is the Best Time to Visit Kadalekai Parishe?

Go early on a weekday morning, ideally before 9 AM, for the freshest groundnuts and the smallest crowds, or come after 6 PM to see the lights. The main Monday and the weekend evenings are the busiest; that is when the fair feels like Majestic bus stand with peanuts.

• Early morning: cool, quieter, farmers fresh and chatty, and time for a temple visit and dosa afterwards.
• Evening: lights, music and maximum festival energy. Also maximum crowd, so keep children close and phones in front pockets.
• With kids: mornings only, carry a hat and water, and agree on a meeting point (Bull Temple steps work) in case anyone gets separated.
• With elders: the walk from the metro is short but crowded. Drop them close by in an auto and keep the visit to an hour.

What Is the Malleswaram Kadalekai Parishe?

Malleswaram hosts its own smaller groundnut fair in north Bengaluru, usually a little earlier than Basavanagudi. In 2025 it ran from 8 to 10 November and also went plastic-free. If the Basavanagudi crowd scares you, it is a gentler introduction to the tradition.

Dates for the Malleswaram parishe are announced locally each year. I will add the 2026 dates here as soon as they are confirmed, and they will also go up on our What's Happening page.

Same city, new stories, always.

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