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Bathukamma – Celebrating Navratri in Telangana

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Editor’s Note: This is a short video and an accompanying note that we created for the Ministry of Tourism to give an introduction to Bathukamma – the joyous and colourful celebration of Navratri in Telangana and parts of Andhra Pradesh.

Indian have venerated the goddess for millennia. During Shardiya Navratri, the Devi is celebrated in every nook and corner of the country in infinite ways and myriad forms. In Telangana and parts of Andhra Pradesh women and young girls celebrate Bathukamma for nine days. The spirit of life and the colours of nature blend together in the mesmerising songs and flowers of Bathukamma.

Bathukamma means ‘mother of life’ or ‘mother live on’. She is the source of life for agrarian communities and is also equated with Gauri. The mother who gives us life is worshipped with conical and tiered arrangements of local flowers in conical shapes. A goddess made of turmeric adorn the top of the floral bathukammas  which are characteristic of the festival. Melodious songs and spirited dances in the evenings by women and young girls make her worship come alive.

The colourful bathukammas reflect the spirit of life and are immersed in lakes and ponds on the last day of the festival in a grand finale with the belief that Bathukamma or Gauramma will be back next year and every year like the harvest comes again…

బతుకమ్మ శుభాకాంక్షలు!

Bathukamma shubakankshalu!

बथुकम्मा शुभाकांक्षालु!

 

 

Garima Chaudhry - Founder and Editor - CulturalSamvaad.com

Garima Chaudhry

Garima Chaudhry is the Founder and Editor of Cultural Samvaad and Founder and Managing Partner of Hiranya Growth Partners LLP, a boutique consulting and content advisory firm based in Mumbai.

A scholar-practitioner with deep roots in Indic Studies, Garima has been a visiting faculty member for over a decade at Mumbai University and KJ Somaiya Institute of Dharma Studies, among other institutions. She has taught diploma, graduate and post-graduate courses in Development of Religious Thought in India, Hindu Thought, Bhartiya Purakatha, Buddhism and Comparative Mythology. She regularly conducts immersive workshops on India's dharmic traditions, civilisational heritage, enduring values, stories and symbols for diverse cohorts across institutions and organisations.

Garima brings over 25 years of leadership experience across financial services, digital payments, eCommerce, education and media. She began her career as a TAS Officer with the Tata Group, working across functions and sectors including FMCG and Power. At Citibank, she held progressive leadership roles culminating as Head of Strategy, Citi South Asia — working with the CEO, South Asia and Asia Pacific office on near and long-term strategic initiatives. Garima earlier led the business team for Digital Marketing, ePayments and eCommerce across India, building one of the country's early digital payment platforms. As Director at Capital18 (Network18), she led investment transactions and managed portfolio companies across focus sectors. She also served as CEO of GreyCells18 (Topperlearning and Topper TV), where she turned around and scaled the company to a 150-member team and built one of India's foremost supplementary education platforms.

Garima holds an MBA from XLRI Jamshedpur and a Bachelor's degree in Economics and Statistics from DAV College, Kanpur.Her scholarly interest in India's ancient संस्कृति — culture — and her conviction that a native idiom rooted in India's own ethos is essential to equitable growth and sustainable change, is the founding impulse behind Cultural Samvaad.

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