Ugaadhi Panduga - Telugu New Year

The most profoundly celebrated festival by all the Telugu people invariable of caste, creed, religion is "Ugaadhi - ఉగాది". Ugaadhi is the first day of the new year in a Telugu calender. It is the time of fresh blossoms, it is that time of the year when you see blue skies and fresh clear mornings with tender blossoming flowers and fruits. It is festival where everyone in the family comes together to pray for a good year ahead, an year filled with good health, wealth, love and joy.

As a child what I looked forward towards the most was "Ugaadhi Pachadi", a pickle made on the Ugaadhi day. Here is the recipe for making Ugadhi Pachadi:

Ingredients:
Raw Mango - 1
Sugar Cane - 1/2 foot long stem
Fresh Jagiri (bellam) - 5 gm
Fresh Tamarind - 10 gm
Cumin (jeera) - 1 tea spoon
Crystal Sugar (patika bellam) - 5 gm
Tender Leaf from Mango Tree - 1
Neem flowers - 3 tea spoons
Salt to taste

Procedure:
- Chop the mango into small pieces; extract the juice from the sugarcane; extract tamarind pulp;
- Mix all ingredients together and let it soak for an hour and the Ugaadhi pachadi is ready to eat (please make sure that you finished your bath and prayers; usually it is served as prasadham)

Ugaadhi is celebrated on the day of "Chaithrashuddha Paadyami - చైత్రశుద్ధ పాడ్యమి". On this day ఒనె షౌల్ద్ వాకే అప్ ఎఅర్లీ ఇన్ the morning before sunrise, apply sesame oil on the head and have a hair wash, wear new clothes, apply thilakam on the forehead and pray to the Sun God. Pray to the Lord with lit fragrant incense stick, and by lighting an oil lamp. Offer flowers, fruits and payasam as prasadham.

The whole family comes together for the prayer and receiving the "aarthi". After that every eats Ugaadhi Pachadi and wish each other saying "ఉగాది శుభాకాంక్షలు (ఉగాది శుభాకాంక్షలు) or Nuthana Samvathsara Subhaakankshalu (నూతన సంవత్సర శుభాకాంక్షలు)".

The youngsters of the house take blessings from the elders of the house before they have their break-fast. Break fast normally consists for a festive mood, serving "Neythi Gaaralu, Allam Chatney and Payasam".

... to be continued... the prayer procedure and the slokas to be recited will be updated..

Celebrating Our Traditions

An Indian life style is primarily based on the traditions from the ancient Hinduism. We are a country today filled with multi-cultural and religious values. We embrace it with love and brotherhood.

Until today we perform a lot of festivals and traditions based on what our ancient scriptures, epics, Vedas, Upanishads have outlined in them. The way the weddings take place, the way we follow the naming ceremony, etc are all based on our ancient traditions. Thankfully we have been able to preserve them till this day.

And then there are the festivals and rituals we celebrate, both religious and non religious. All these also have very ancient roots. In this series of blogs I intend bring forward the various festivals that Indians and more specifically the Telugu people celebrate and how we should celebrate each of them. The purpose of this is to bring about an awareness and retain our culture and traditions.

While I am a person that strongly supports modernisation and technology we need to retain and sustain our culture and tradition which imbibes the values that we today possess into us. My target is to educate the city folk and the people living abroad that have the passion to retain our tradition.

If in the meanwhile any of you are looking for specific information on any particular festival leave me a note and I will do m best to bring forward all the relevant information.