Ugadi Celebrations

The New year festival (Ugadi) celebrated in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, Gudi padwa in Maharashtra. Ugadi festival comes in spring season, it is the first season Ugadi is the New Year and New Beginnings of all New Business on this Auspicious day. It is the season for mangoes and Sugarcanes, with these seasonal fruits we make "Ugadi Pachadi" with raw mangoes ,neem flowers and jaggery from sugar cane on this auspicious day. Ugadi Pachadi  is the combination of sweet , bitter and sour, it symbolises the true life. We get fresh mangoes from our field and my Mom makes tongue tinkling Mango Pickles in this season.

My mom use to begin the preparations a week ahead . On that day, we wake up early in the morning and take oil bathe, decorate our house with mango leaves ( Mavilai thoranam) and decorate the pooja room with jasmine flowers. She prepares the sweets a day before itself like Bobbatlu ( Opputtu) and Athirasam.

On Ugadi day, We use to fast in the morning after the prayer have our lunch with Ugadi Bhojanam ( Ugadi Feast). She cooks lot of recipes for our lunch Rice, White Pumpkin Sambar, Tomato rasam, yellow Pumpkin curry with beans,Pulihora,Udhu Vadai ( Methu Vadai), Aval Paal Payasam,Appalam and Mango Pickle.


Here, on yesterday we celebrated our Ugadi festival as in the same way. In the evening we have done our prayer after my hubby came from work. Our dinner with Ugadi Bhojanam Rice, Brinjal sambar, Tomato rasam, Potato fry,Masala Vadai, Rice n Moong dal Paal Payasam, Appalam . My hubby came early on yesterday,Once i finished all the cooking preparations we offered the food to the God and then had our dinner.