Bathukamma: Telangana's festival of flowers

Bathukamma explained: Telangana's women's festival of flowers during Navratri. How the flower tower is made, the nine days from Engili Pula to Saddula Bathukamma, songs and dates.

Women gather around their bathukammas, towers of flowers, in Telangana. Photo: Happie1Soul, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Bathukamma 2026 dates

The festival begins on Mahalaya Amavasya, Saturday 10 October 2026, with Engili Pula Bathukamma, and ends with Saddula Bathukamma on Durgashtami.

Tarpan on Mahalaya: offering water, til and kusha grass to the ancestors at the Ganga. Photo: Goutam1962, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

How a bathukamma is made

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

Women gather around their bathukammas, towers of flowers, in Telangana. Photo: Happie1Soul, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

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.

A woman in a red-bordered white sari walks past a giant Durga face in Kolkata. Photo: Surajits photography, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

The nine days

Each day has its own name and its own offering.

A worship plate with a conch, lamp and offerings. Photo: Vish79, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.

Where to see it

Every town and village in Telangana celebrates, and Telangana families keep Bathukamma wherever they live.

A bathukamma: flowers stacked in rings into a cone. Photo: Randhirreddy at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.

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.

Garba on a Navratri night. Photo: Saurabh sirohiya, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.