On this Saturday 2nd April 2022, the Telugu community is celebrating Ugadi or Yugadi, also known as Samvatsarādi (lit. ’Beginning of the Year’). This is the New Year’s Day for the Telugu community in India and across the world. It is festively observed on the first day of the Hindu lunisolar calendar month of Chaitra, which typically falls in April as per the Gregorian calendar. It also falls in the Tamil month Panguni or Chithrai (Sometimes) on the day after Amavasya with 27th Nakshatra Revati. Interestingly, Ugadi day is pivoted on the first New Moon after March Equinox.
The day is observed by drawing colourful patterns on the floor called Muggulu, mango leaf decorations on doors called torana, buying and giving gifts such as new clothes, giving charity, oil massage followed by special bath, preparing and sharing a special food called pachadi, and visiting Hindu temples where the Panchangum is read and distributed among the devotees present for the prayers. The pachadi is a notable festive food that combines all flavors – sweet, sour, salty, bitter, astringent and piquant. In Telugu and Kannada Hindu traditions, it is a symbolic reminder that one must expect all flavors of experiences in the coming New Year and make the most of them.
Ugadi has been an important and historic festival of the Hindus, with medieval texts and inscriptions recording major charitable donations to Hindu temples and community centres on this day. Preparations for the festival begin a week ahead. Houses are cleaned thoroughly. People buy new clothes and dhoti and buy new items for the festival, decorate the entrance of their houses with fresh mango leaves. Mango leaves and coconuts are considered auspicious in the Hindu tradition, and they are used on Ugadi. People also clean the front of their houses with water and cow dung paste, then draw colourful floral designs.
