The festival enters the famous book of records and with good backing.
The Bathukamma festival is celebrated by the women of Telangana every year during the nine days of Navratari and before the winter season in India and this year it was even more special due to the staggering amount of women coming together for the event amid a few issues.
The festival, which took place on the 8th of October this year, celebrated the connection between water, earth and humans and was attended by 9,292 women, including tennis champion Sania Mirza, at the L. B. Stadium in the State. Even with a heavy downpour of rain, the women gathered and danced around the bathukamma, a stacked display of flowers with medicinal values. And you know the best part; this got them into the Guinness World Records book.
(Credits: telanganawallpapers.com)
Rashmi Thakur, India’s Miss Planet, who was also at the festival, mentioned that it was a proud moment for the State and the country for the festival to take place even in such conditions and with such good planning.
Venkateshvarlu, Telangana Tourism Secretary, hopes that this world record will hopefully increase the awareness about the festival among foreign tourists and make them visit it in the future.
In the entire week of the festival, women created “Boddemma” (an idol of Gowri made entirely of mud) with the bathukamma and immersed it in a pond. The flowers used for the same are said to have medicinal properties that helps the pond retain more water.
This takes the term ‘flower power’ to a whole new level.