First published Sunday 5 April 2015 in Basingstoke
COLOUR and song broke out when an Indian community celebrated the start of their New Year.
The Telugu community got into festive spirits at The Vyne Community School for a Ugadi ceremony.
Hundreds of people from across the county donned colourful saris and exquisite jewellery before heading to the Vyne Road school for the annual celebration.
Ugadi, or Yugadi, is the New Year for people in South India and is a major festival.
It is the fifth year the Telugu Association Basingstoke UK (TAB-UK) had held the free event.
Traditionally during this festival people eat a special dish consisting of six tastes symbolising different emotions – sadness, happiness, anger, fear, disgust and surprise.
The evening was filled with traditional activities including reciting the yearly horoscopes, singing and dancing.
Sreeni Vavilala, chairman of the association described it as a “colourful” and “joyous” event.
He said: “Traditionally we tend to check the horoscope at the beginning of the year and see how things are going to be for the forthcoming year.
“So the priest did the rituals and then we had traditional Indian dances.”
To celebrate the fifth anniversary of TAB-UK, a big cake was cut by all the women and children followed by a banquet.
Sreeni added: “We started off as a few friends getting people together for the festivals. We never thought it would get this far.”