Bathukamma — The Dance of my Childhood

Illustration By Mounica Tata

The earliest memory I have of Bathukamma is going to my mother’s friend Padma aunty’s house to dance in a circle. But before the dancing began, we children had an important task: gathering flowers. I’ve watched this festival unfold for forty-six years, from flower hunts as a child to quiet observation as an adult, and each time, it reveals something new about the land, the women, and me. Because at its heart, Bathukamma means Bathuku, “alive”, and Amma, “mother”. It literally translates to “Oh Mother, please come back to life.”

My grandparents lived in old Secunderabad when the neighbourhood was still composed of independent homes and friendly lanes, where people would drop by to borrow curry leaves or share the day’s stories. Padma aunty and my mother worked in the same office and, for a time, lived next door.

On Bathukamma day, the front yards were washed with cow dung, coated with turmeric paste, and decorated with muggu (rangoli), each home with its own design. Doors were adorned with mango leaves; women and men took ritual baths. Women dressed in vibrant sarees, little girls in pattu langa, and teenagers in langa voni. Their hair was filled with seasonal flowers, wrists stacked with glass bangles, foreheads marked with kumkum, and feet touched with pasupu, all shimmering in the morning light.

Back then, my grandparents’ house was a green oasis, covered with trees. It was easy to find blooms of every colour. The trees were borderless nations; it didn’t matter in which compound they grew,  come Bathukamma season, we the little foragers were united in our singular mission: to pluck flowers. As with every adventure, this came with some risks, climbing over walls, sneaking in and running out with our loot.  But Bathukamma gave us impunity, no adults scolded us for otherwise they risked being labelled the villains of the neighbourhood.

I didn’t understand the significance  of the festival. Watching Padma aunty and her family arrange the flowers with such fervour and devotion, occasionally asking me to pitch in, I saw it as a time of joy, dancing, singing, and being treated to delicious food for ten days straight.

It was, in many ways, my first dance, the original rhythm that my body learnt before I even knew what rhythm meant. It felt primal, alive. When I was in the third standard, we moved away from that neighbourhood to a colony filled with people from different parts of India.

The joy of Bathukamma and those days we would wait for all year slowly faded into the background.

Only when I moved back to Secunderabad in my early twenties did I reconnect with the goddess. I say goddess because, for us Telugu people, every act of worship is tied to the feminine form, we call the earth Dhathri, the land Bhoomi, and nature itself Adavi Thalli, the Mother of the Forest. Returning to Bathukamma felt like coming home to my mother.

And when the drums started and the women began to sing, I realised I hadn’t forgotten a single song or step. It was as if the memory had been waiting quietly inside me all along.

There are countless stories about Bathukamma, many of which sound the same when you search the internet or read official accounts. But you truly begin to understand it only when you dig deeper, into forgotten histories, oral traditions, and the lived memories of women who have kept it alive.

And perhaps that’s what it really is, a prayer for all that we’ve forgotten to come alive again. But what does it mean to be alive?

For me, it means foraging of a different kind now, to understand the origins of this festival, from the worship of nature to the worship of goddesses embodying nature, celebrating a beautiful, delicate circle of life. 

Photo- Internet

Before Bathukamma arrives, there is Boddemma, a quieter, earthen ritual that marks the end of the monsoon and the preparation of the land for the next cycle. Women sculpt Boddemma from clay; she is Gauri, the mother who embodies the soil itself.

Each region in Telangana has its own rhythm: in some places she is worshipped for five days, in others for nine, and then immersed in ponds on Mahalaya Amavasya. (మహాలయ అమావాస్య), Known in many Telugu homes as Pedda Amavasya (the Great New Moon), it is the day that marks the end of Pitru Paksha, the fortnight dedicated to honouring one’s ancestors (pitrulu). It usually falls in the Bhadrapada month (September–October), just before the start of Navaratri and Bathukamma. On this day, families offer pinda pradana, which consists of rice balls, sesame, and water, praying that their forefathers’ souls rest in peace and bless the living. People wake early and offer food to the crows, symbolising the feeding of ancestors through nature. It is a day of remembrance.

Boddemma is, in many ways, the prelude; she steadies the ground so that Bathukamma may bloom. As Boddemma returns to the water, the flowers return to the land.

And then, Bathukamma begins.

On that dark night, families pray for the peace of those who came before them, and by morning, a new cycle begins.

From Mahalaya Amavasya to Ashwayuja Navami spans nine bright days, known as Shukla Paksha,the waxing phase of the moon, when darkness gives way to light. Ashwayuja Navami, the ninth day of this period, marks the height of the festival, The day when women gather to immerse Bathukamma, symbolising life returning to water and the earth being renewed.

Unlike the solar calendar that most of the world follows today, the Telugu calendar is a lunar calendar, guided by the phases of the moon. And so Bathukamma, in essence, follows the rhythm of the sky, beginning with remembrance on the new moon and ending with celebration under growing light.

Photo - Deepthi Tanikella

It is the time when Telangana’s lakes brim and the wild plains burst into colour; flowers appear in abundance, growing untamed, not in gardens but along tanks, bunds, and village paths. These are the same flowers that children like me once gathered in fistfuls, running barefoot.

Each evening, women gather in courtyards, dressing in vivid colours, adorning themselves in gold and silver, and stacking flowers like Tangedu, Gunugu, Nandivardhanam, Gorintaaku, Banti, Chemanti, Katla, Rudraksha, and Gumadi, along with young teak shoots, which are gathered and arranged tier upon tier on a circular brass plate, the taambalam. The conical mound they build is Bathukamma herself: alive, fragrant, and ephemeral.

As twilight deepens, women, little girls, and teenagers stand in circles around her, singing songs that blend myth and memory, love and longing. Their hands clap in rhythm, their feet trace gentle circles, the same ancient geometry that once honoured the sun and moon.

Here is the song that is sung when she is brought to life…

Telugu: ఏమేమి పువ్వోప్పునే గౌరమ్మ తంగేడు పువ్వోప్పునే గౌరమ్మ తంగేడు పువ్వులో తంగేడు కాయలో

Transliteration:Ememi puvvoppune Gauramma,Tangedu puvvoppune Gauramma,Tangedu puvvulo tangedu kayalo.

Meaning in English:

What all flowers shall we offer you, O Gauramma? We offer you the Tangedu flower, O Gauramma, The Tangedu flower with its buds and pods together.

For nine days, small and large Bathukammas are made, danced around, and taken to the ponds. On the last evening, Saddula Bathukamma, the grandest of them all, is carried in a procession, a stream of women, laughter, colour, and song. The air fills with uyyalo, the chorus that calls the mother to life again.

At the water’s edge, Bathukamma is lowered gently into the pond. Flowers meet water, clay meets earth. The circle is complete. The women share maleeda, soft roti mixed with jaggery and walk home with empty plates and full hearts.

Bathukamma isn’t just devotion. It is the Deccan’s oldest conversation between people and the earth.

As researcher Kurumelli Geetha of Kakatiya University (2024) writes, the flowers used in Bathukamma “have great quality of purifying water in ponds and tanks”, making the festival “a symbol of Telangana’s environmental consciousness.”

And perhaps that is what it truly is, not only a prayer to the goddess but a celebration of how people once lived in balance with the world around them.

This is where I will pause for now. In the next chapter, we’ll walk together through how Bathukamma is celebrated, the nine days of food, flowers, and songs that still keep Telangana alive. Until then, keep the image of those floating flowers in your mind, bright, brief, and alive.

Photo - Internet