Hyderabad: ‘Maha Bathukamma’, the floral festival of Telangana, made it to the Guinness World Records with over 9,000 women participating in festivities here on Saturday.
At the grand event held at L.B. Stadium, 9,292 women sang and played together around a giant 20-ft high stack of flowers arranged in concentric layers. Despite rain, the women took part in the event, singing folk songs and playing in traditional manner around the flower cone.
This lasted for 12 minutes with hundreds of people watching the event, organised by the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC). Representatives of the Guinness World Records were also present.
The earlier record was held by Kerala where 5,211 women had participated in ‘Onam’ festival. Greater Hyderabad mayor B. Rammohan described the world record as another feather in the cap of Telangana and Hyderabad. Telangana’s brand ambassador and tennis star Sania Mirza and badminton player P.V. Sindhu added the glamour to the event.
Saturday was the last day of nine-day festival, a symbol of rich culture of Telangana. The women celebrate the festival of flowers by making ‘Bathukamma’ or arranging flowers in a stack and playing and singing around it every evening for nine days. Each day is called by a different name. Women used seasonal flowers and also those found in forests for making ‘Bathukamma’, which looks like crown or the ‘gopuram’ of a temple. On the last day, ‘Bathukammas’ are immersed in local ponds.
