Warangal: Rousing start to Bathukamma

Warangal: Bathukamma, the yearly mega festival of Telangana began on an animated note on Wednesday with women clad in traditional clothes turning to temples in large numbers across the erstwhile Warangal district. Traditionally, the nine-day fiesta begins on Mahalaya Amavasya, also known as Pethra Amavasya, with Engili Poola Bathukamma. Women celebrate it by offering naivedyam prepared with sesame seeds with rice flour.

It was a visual treat at the Thousand Pillars Temple as the precincts reverberated with women singing Bathukamma songs and dancing around the Bathukammas. The festival ends with the Saddula Bathukamma also known as Durgashtami on grand note on the ninth day with the women immersing Bathukamma in water bodies.

It may be mentioned here that even though Bathukamma is a huge festival in Telangana, the way the fiesta is celebrated in Hanumakonda is a cut above than other places. The grand finale, Saddula Bathukamma, at the foot of Padmakshi Temple hillock is considered as a spectacle not to miss.