Bathukamma: Telangana's festival of flowers

Bathukamma is Telangana's festival of flowers and the state's official festival. For nine days during Navratri, women and girls build cone-shaped towers of flowers, called bathukammas, gather in the evening to dance and sing around them, and then let them float away on a lake, tank or pond. The name is usually translated as "Mother Goddess, come alive": the flowers themselves are honoured as the Goddess, often identified with Gauri.

Bathukamma 2026 dates

The festival begins on Mahalaya Amavasya, Saturday 10 October 2026, with Engili Pula Bathukamma, and ends with Saddula Bathukamma on Durgashtami. Published 2026 calendars disagree on the last day: some, including the state calendar, give 18 October, while others following a different panchang give 19 October. Dussehra (Dasara) follows. Check the Telangana government holiday list or your local temple for the final dates.

How a bathukamma is made

A bathukamma is built in layers on a thambalam, a brass or steel plate:

1. A base of leaves is laid on the plate.
2. Flowers are packed in concentric rings, each smaller than the last, so the stack narrows into a cone. Colours are alternated in bands.
3. A small Gauramma (Gauri), a cone of turmeric paste, is placed on top, sometimes with a pumpkin flower.

The flowers are those of the Deccan monsoon's end: bright yellow tangedu (Tanner's cassia), feathery gunuka (celosia), banti (marigold), chamanti (chrysanthemum), lotus, and many more. Many of them are medicinal plants, and people say the flowers cleanse the water bodies they are set afloat on. Bathukammas range from a hand's height on the first days to towers a metre or more tall on the last.

The evening ritual

In the late afternoon, women in their best saris carry their bathukammas to an open space: a temple yard, a street corner, the bank of a tank. The bathukammas are placed in the centre, and the women form a circle around them, clapping in rhythm and singing Bathukamma songs, call-and-response folk songs about the Goddess, family life, history and the village. The circle turns slowly for an hour or more.

At dusk the bathukammas are carried to the water and set afloat with a final song. Women share small offerings of food (prasadam) with each other, and go home together.

Also readNavratri and Dussehra across India

The nine days

Each day has its own name and its own offering. The names vary a little between districts, but a common sequence is:

Saddula Bathukamma, the last day, is the biggest. The tallest bathukammas of the year are built, and families cook saddulu, flavoured rices such as tamarind, lemon, coconut, sesame and curd rice, to share after the immersion.

Where to see it

Every town and village in Telangana celebrates, and Telangana families keep Bathukamma wherever they live. In Hyderabad the largest gatherings are around Hussain Sagar and the city's lakes, with state-organised celebrations on the final evening. Outside the state, Telugu associations in other cities hold community Bathukamma evenings; ask locally.

Bathukamma and the season

Bathukamma runs through the same nine nights that Bengal spends preparing for and celebrating Durga Puja, and Gujarat spends dancing garba. See how the other communities keep the season in Navratri across India, and the Tamil and Telugu doll displays in the Golu guide.