Fourth North American Bathukamma in Chicago

Chicago, (Illinois): Telanganites living in Chicago land area celebrated Telangana Liberation Day along with 4th North American Bathukamma Festival. The event was attended well and it was a grand success by any measure. The event was organized by Telangana Development Forum (TDF-USA), Chicago Chapter.

More than 200 people attended the event and celebrated Bathuakamma with great enthusiasm and gaiety. People of all ages participated in this event.

It was a nice sunny day and people woke up early and collected flowers for Bathukammas. This activity brought back memories from backhome where children used to go to fields to collect various wild flowers like Gunugu poolu, Thangedu Poolu and other domestic flowers like Beera Poolu and Cutley Poolu. Since we cannot get these flowers in North America, we had to substitute them with locally available flowers.

Bathukamma Picnic started at 10am with people trickling in slowly. We had big Bathukamma banner specially brought from India for this occasion. TDF Volunteers, with specially designed TDF T-shirts were seen everywhere setting up the site for Bathukamma.

Venkat Juwadi anchored the event and welcomed all participants, to follow the tradition everyone introduced themselves. The next event was the celebration of Telangana Liberation Day (Telangana Vimochana Dinam). Purna C R Allamneni explained briefly about TDF and its activities and also spoke about Telangana Liberation Day, Sept 17th, 1948. Telangana was still fighting against Nizam's dictatorship even after India got freedom from British on August 15th 1947. Many people were surprised to learn this historical fact and were happy to get to know that. Many Telangana people sacrificed their lives to get their freedom from the oppressive rule of Nizam. It is important not only to remember the day as a historical record when Telangana got its freedom but also to remember all those who lost their lives fighting for their freedom. All the participants observed a moment of silence to honor those heroes.

Venkat Thudi briefly explained the history of the Bathukamma celebrations in Chicago, how we started 4 years back with a small group and how it has become a major cultural event among NRI's in Chicago.

One of the voulanteer Ashok Mudrakola sang a couple of folk songs.

Next, lunch was served and it was a great feast, thanks to all the Ladies who prepared them. There were about 27 different delicious Telangana dishes.

After Lunch, there were varieties of games for people of all ages who participated with great enthusiasm.

Bathukamma started at about 3pm with women in traditional sarees, girls in half sarees, with Bathukammas made of locally available flowers which were placed in the center and women played around the Bathukammas. It was a visual treat when women danced around Bathukammas with Bathukamma songs in the rhythm of "Bathukamma Bathukamma Uyyaalo." Women folks danced more than an hour to the tunes of Bathukamma songs that were brought from India.
There was a special prize for "Best Bathukamma" sponsored by Sridhar Loka.

Final event of the day was when all the participants assembled together for prize distribution to winners of various games. We requested the elders to distribute the prizes.

Some of the elders who are visiting U.S, also came to attend. They spoke very emotionally and were very surprised and happy to see the celebrations which were done in a traditional way.

Finally Venkat Juwadi thanked everyone in helping organize the event. The event was a great success because of the hard work and contributions of the following TDF volunteers Mahesh Pasula, Manjula Reddy, Sreenath Chinnala, Ashok Mudrakola, Niranjan Allamneni, , Pradeep Damidi and Sridhar Loka.

Over all, it was a great event that exceeded every ones expectations. All the particiapants were very pleased with the event.

TDF-USA is a not-for-profit organization created to provide a platform for Non-Resident Telanganites to come together to discuss various problems faced by Telangana people.

Please visit www.telangana.org for information about TDF-USA.

OneIndia News