Bathukamma – The floral festival.

BATHUKAMMA is a Festival of Flowers and is the unique colorful festival of Telangana state in India. Bathukamma represents the cultural identity of Telangana. Bathukamma is a beautiful flower stack, arranged with different unique seasonal flowers most of them with medicinal value, in seven concentric layers in the shape of potter’s clay like a cone. In Telugu, ‘Bathukamma' means ‘Mother Goddess Come Alive’ and Goddess Maha Gauri Devi - ‘Life Giver’ is worshipped in the form of Bathukamma.

The festival is celebrated for one whole week and the last day is the ‘Saddula Batukamma’, which is considered as the grand finale of the Batukamma festival. For the whole week, the women make small ‘Batukammas’, play around them every evening and immerse them in the nearby water pond. On the last day, the men folk of the house go into the wild plains and gather the flowers like Celosia, Senna auriculata, Tagetes, Chrysanthemum, Nelumbo nucifera, Cucumis Sativus, Memecylon edule, Tridax  rocumbens, Trachyspermum ammi, Katla and Teku. They bring home bagful of these flowers and the entire household sits down to make the big ‘Batukamma’. Then it placed in front of the deity of the home and prayed.

This is the festival for feminine felicitation. On this special occasion, the women dress up in traditional attire combining with jewels and other accessories. They place the Batukamma in their court yard. The women of neighborhood also gather in a large circle around it. They start singing songs by circling it repeatedly, building a beautiful human circle of unity, love and sisterhood.

After playing in circles around the “Batukammalu”, before the onset of dusk, the women folk carry them on their heads and move as a procession towards a bigger water body near the village or town. The procession is extremely colourful with the decorations of women and the “Batukammalu”. Songs of folklore are sung in chorus throughout the procession and the streets resonate with them.

Finally, when they reach the water pond the “Batukammalu” are slowly immersed into water after some more playing and singing. Then they share the home made sweets amongst the family members and the neighborhood. They return to their homes singing songs in praise of Batukamma. The songs of Batukamma echo in the streets until late night during the entire week.

Bathukamma celebrates the inherent relationship between earth, water and the human beings. 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.

Bathukamma is the most environmental friendly celebration being the festival of flowers and immersion of these flowers with medicinal values in the pond purifies the water and making the environment much better.

The festival heralds the beauty of nature, collective spirit of Telangana people, the indomitable spirit of women folks and also the scientific approach of the agrarian people towards preserving the resources of nature in a celebrative way.