Colourful flowers have been heaped on the edge of Hussainsagar Lake near Indira Gandhi statue. A couple walk in with their children and the woman gives a beautifully-arranged flower pattern on a platter to a young man in shorts. He wades into the water and at about 10 feet from the edge of the steps, he upturns the plate and comes back to the shore. The husband fishes out a ₹50 note and gives it to the young man. And just like that, one of the oldest traditions of Bathukamma has been quietly bid adieu. “We have to put the Bathukamma in water, but the water is dirty and I cannot go inside,” said Padmalakshmi, the housewife, who said she has been following the tradition from childhood at her native place Warangal.
“Tradition demands that we immerse the ammavaru in the water on the ninth day and recite the lines ending with Ravama Gouramma, Malli ravamma ma intiki promising the goddess that she will be taken care of when she returns next year. But now the water is so polluted in Kukatpally lake that we are just putting it in water without touching it. Most women are not touching the water of the lakes or ponds as it is dirty,” says Venkatramana Choudhury Janardhan, who has come for the communal Batukkamma near Kukatpally Ramalayam, one of the places in the city where the celebration is in a different league altogether.
A few kilometres away is the specially-created Bathukamma Ghat near Tank Bund where women from the nearby areas come to play Bathukamma. By 6.30 p.m. during Dasara, women dressed in festive colours reach the manicured lawns and begin playing Bathukamma singing songs, standing shoulder to shoulder and clapping. The water has the off-putting dark green colour of a toxic broth. Here too, the women release the flower arrangement near the fringe carefully, avoiding contact with water.
Festival grant
While the Telangana government has declared Bathukamma a state festival granting ₹20 crore for its celebrations, the foul quality of water in most city lakes and ponds has robbed the festival of its key tradition. “Women have to release the flowers in the water and pray that their lives are not troubled. On the ninth day, they release Talli Gouramma in water and bring back the Pilla Gouramma home,” said Mr. Venkatramana, referring to the break from tradition.
Data from Telangana State Pollution Control Board shows that the green toxic broth of the Hussainsagar has only worsened over the past two decades. The key parameters like Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD), Dissolved Oxygen (DO), sulphats, and total hardness have deteriorated over the past 18 years.
While the tabulated annual averages show the difference, the annual detailed analysis during Ganesha festival before and after the immersion of idols shows the havoc wrought on the lake. “The BOD, which is an indicator of organic pollution, spikes during the Ganesha festival. All our monitoring stations are now recording very high levels of pollution,” said an official of TSPCB.
While the BOD value was 10 mg/L in 2001, it doubled to 22 mg/L in 2017 and during the immersion period, it ranged between 53 mg/L and 108 mg/L near NTR Park. Near Lumbini Park, the BOD soared to 113 mg/L and the dissolved oxygen plummeted to zero during the immersion period.
Ironically, with the immersion of large quantities of flowers and other puja offerings, the BOD of Hussainsagar is likely to deteriorate further.
