Bathukamma Festival : Festival Of Flowers
The nine-day-long annual festival of flowers Bathukamma began on a colorful note across Telangana.
- It is a colorful floral festival celebrated by women with exotic local flowers.
- The festival coincides with the monsoon, bringing water to ponds and wildflowers in vibrant colors.
- Local flowers like ‘gunuka,’ ‘tangedu,’ ‘banti,’ and ‘nandi-vardhanam’ are abundantly used.
- The festival begins a week before the ‘Saddula Bathukamma’ (the grand finale of the Bathukamma festival) which falls two days before Dussehra.
- During the entire preceding week, women make ‘boddemma’ (a deity of Gowri – mother Durga – made with earthly mud) along with Batukamma and immerse it in the pond.
- This helps reinforce the ponds and helps it retain more water.
- The festival reinforces the bond between humans, the earth, and water, with rituals aimed at preserving natural resources.
