Bathukamma 2153: Pomona, California

Bathukamma (literally "Mother Goddess, come alive") is Telangana's signature floral festival, a nine-day celebration of Goddess Gauri that runs alongside Sharad Navaratri. Women and girls gather flowers from the fields and gardens around them, gadwal marigold, tangedu (senna), celosia, chrysanthemum, and arrange them in concentric, cone-shaped tiers on a brass plate to build the Bathukamma itself: a living flower stack representing the Goddess.

Each evening through the nine days, women place the flower stack in courtyards and public spaces, light a lamp at its centre, and circle it singing traditional folk songs while clapping in rhythm, songs that recall village life, sisterly bonds, and the Goddess's own stories, passed down almost entirely through oral tradition. On the final day, Saddula Bathukamma, the flower stacks are carried in procession to a lake, pond, or river and immersed, with turmeric, vermilion, and bangles offered to the water alongside them.

Beyond its devotional core, Bathukamma is deeply a festival of community and womanhood: it draws women of every age and background into a shared, outdoor, public celebration, uses no idols, and depends entirely on flowers gathered fresh each day, making it also a quiet, recurring celebration of the local land and season. It has been recognized as an official state festival of Telangana and today draws large diaspora celebrations in cities around the world.