Bathukamma
10 October 2026 · movable holiday — Flowers in rings, songs till dawn – I float down the sky river!
Bathukamma is a floral festival celebrated mainly in Telangana, India. It lasts nine days, from Mahalaya Amavasya, the new moon on the eve of the autumn Navaratri (the “nine nights”), to Durga Ashtami in the month of Ashwin. The final day is called Saddula Bathukamma. Women gather seasonal wildflowers and arrange them into tall, cone-shaped stacks of concentric rings. In the evenings the stacks are placed outdoors, and women circle them, clapping and singing folk songs. On the final day the flower stacks are carried in procession to a lake or river and set afloat. The name comes from Telugu “bathuku” (life) and “amma” (mother) and is usually interpreted as “Come alive, Mother”, and the festival is linked with reverence for the mother goddess and gratitude for nature after the monsoon. Its tie to the sky is the lunar calendar: Navaratri follows lunar months, so the dates shift each year, and the ringed flower tower evokes circles of light drifting down a river of stars.
Flying across the sky: An ethereal, bluish-silver star figure made of bright dots and lines, shaped like a tiered tower of concentric flower rings, drifting like a constellation along a river of stars
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