Warangal:

The Bathukamma festival this year saw the largest ever participation of women, children and teens in the city, which is being attributed to the heightened sense of Telangana’s unique cultural identity among the people of the region in the wake of the decision to grant the region separate statehood.

Never before have such congregations been reported at Padmakshi gundam (lake) and Siddeshwara gundam, where an estimated 50,000 conical shaped floral arrangements were immersed by women during the Bathukamma festival. The same was true for 15-20 other Bathukamma immersion points in the city.

Such was the overwhelming participation from women that the district cultural council gave away 25 additional awards to the makers of the best conical floral arrangements besi-des the top three prizes.

Ex-mayor of Warangal Municipal Corporation and district culture council convenor and DPRO, K. Venkataramana, awarded the prizes to 25 different organisations.

“The participation in Bathukamma fest went up by 20 per cent  this year,” said Venkataramana, who has been monitoring the turnout in the city for several years.

Cultural activists such as Dr A. Nageshwara Rao, retired librarian, and Potlapally Veerabhadra Rao, district convenor of Samachara Eikya Vedika, attributed the increased participation this year to the assertion of Telangana region’s cultural identity.

However, Dasyam Vijay Bhaskar, state convenor of Telangana Jagruthi, the cultural arm of the Telangana Rashtra Samiti, gave the latter much of the credit for popularising the festival.

Bhaskar said that the  cultural organisation had successfully managed to pierce the veil of embarrassment that educated women felt in associating themselves with the festival openly.

source: http://www.deccanchronicle.com / Deccan Chronicle / Home> News> Current Affairs / DC / by Prabeer Sikdar / October 14th, 2013