Ugadi, a New Year celebration in states like Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka, falls on March 28 this year. As India is known for its versatile culture and the way it is celebrated, even the New Year fest has different names and times in different parts of the country. A festival that is known by the name of Gudi Parva in Maharashtra is celebrated as Ugadi in some other states.
Clear with its name Udagi or Yugadi, which is literally translated as the start of the new calendar Yug (new) and adi (the beginning), falls on the first day of Chitra the first month in Hindi calendar? The festival is celebrated with high spirits, new clothes and abundance of some mouth-watering traditional cuisines. People begin with preparation of the festival well in advance and the day starts with taking a head bath before break of dawn.
They also wear new and
traditional clothes and prepare a special dish called ‘Ugadi Pachadi’ for
relatives and friends. The dish is made using some seasonal ingredients
including raw mango, neem, jaggery, tamarind and also has chilly and salt in
it. These different ingredients signify varied flavors of life such as
happiness, sorrow, anger, bitterness, surprise and fear. The dish is eaten on
this special day to remind ourselves about life and the verity of emotions that
comes along. The idea is to learn how to stay composed during all these phases
of emotion.
Ugadi celebration also includes
an almanac reading out of ‘panchangam’ by the eldest member of
the family or a learned priest, who typically makes predictions for the
upcoming year. The predictions are made out of the moon signs.
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