Ugadi- The New Year
Yugadi the beginning of the new era
Yugadi also known as Ugadi is the main festival of people in South India particularly in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. This is beginning of the Shak calendar of Chaitra the first month samvatsar that normally comes in March or April of Georgian calendar but always comes on a different day according to moon’s position and calculation. Yuga stands for ‘the age’ and Adi means beginning so the combined meaning of these two words makes it beginning of an age, the Yugadi. Although this is not the beginning of Yuga but New Year according to Lunar calculation.
As I had been in south India for long enough to understand and see the traditions and asking them about their culture, I found that people in Andhra have a unique custom of watching their reflection in Ghee the previous night of Ugadi. They follow a very strict routine on daily basis by getting up early in particular way while getting up. Rub their palms and look at them to imagine the presence of Lakshmi, Saraswati and Parvati. There are different other routines to follow to get ready for the welcome of New Year.
The New Year day
Members of the family sit together for rituals to follow conducted by elderly women with betel nuts and leaves in hands. The ladies apply oil to the foreheads of whole family and perform Aarti. The members of the family take oil bath and wear new clothes to prepare for the Pooja ceremony. They give a bath to idols of gods and goddesses with oil or turmeric as per the requirement. They believe that our life is mixture of different feelings consisting of happy, fear, sad, anger, disgust and surprise so we must prepare ourselves to face these with courage. They make a special mixture consisting of six items raw mango, Neem flowers, tamarind, salt, jaggery, banana and chilly or pepper. These six items denote the taste of six different feelings present in a human and make them better prepared to face these throughout the year.
Decoration of the house
As the most Indian festivals, not complete until a proper floral decoration of the entire house not done properly to give it a sacred look. The front doors decorated especially with Rangoli done by white powder and Bandanvar or festoons of mango leaves. There are many other decorations but I am not aware of them all (I know only main and limited number of items as the friends also do not know the details). The Pooja ceremony is simple as they sit together to listen to Panchang (the book with details of year) of the New Year. This being the formal recitation of the information for the coming year and expected incidents those may happen in near future kind of forecasts.
The meals
As most Indian festivals and functions have a particular menu to serve their foods according to occasion so has the Ugadi. The main dishes consist of Playa, Chitrana, Ambode, Holige and Payasa. The food served to gods first as naivedyam and then accepted as Prasad.
How to greet them
When people meet on the New Year day they wish each other with traditional ‘Happy Ugadi’ although I learned it to say in Telugu as well with Shubh Akankshalu making it Samvatsar shubh Akankshalu or Ugadi shubh Akankshalu. Almost same procedure goes with people in Karnataka with a little difference of pronunciation. They in turn chant similar sounding greetings, which one must know the language fully well to understand although the language sounds so much familiar resembling to Sanskrit language.
Cultural functions
As I understand that in Andhra Pradesh, they organize functions and honor their learned people, writers, poets and other respected people of the society on this day as mark of respect offering gifts etc for their contribution. The poets gathered to recite their poems and so many other social gatherings take place in the evening to celebrate the day with much Fanfare. As we, all know that we Hindus have a love for celebrating our festivals with lots of energy, decorations and worshipping our gods following traditions according to particular areas, Ugadi gets special attention of people all over the country and people from Andhra Pradesh are staying. In addition, we, who know people from these states, or living in these two states come in contact and learn some of their customs to participate in the joy of festivity moods.
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