Telangana's popular Medaram Jatara to be theme of Republic Day tableau in 2018

HYDERABAD: Telangana's most popular congregation `Medaram Sammakka-Saralamma Jatara' is likely to be the theme of the tableau representing India's youngest state at the Republic Day parade in New Delhi in January 2018.

The union defence ministry's ceremonial committee, which met with representatives from all the states a couple of days ago in Delhi, suggested some changes to the theme and asked the Telangana government officials to come back with the modifications for the October 6 meeting.

State government officials are now upbeat as the tableau theme of Sammakka Saralamma Jatara proposed by Telangana has passed the first round.It may be pertinent to mention that the state tableau has failed to make it to the R-Day parade two years in a row i.e, in January 2016 and January 2017.

When contacted, Informa tion and Public Relations department deputy director P Bhaskar, who attended the meeting, confirmed to TOI that the ceremonial committee suggested some changes to be made in the Sammakka Saralamma Jatara theme and come back with modifications in the next meeting.

“From Telangana, we had presented three different themes -Mission Bhagiratha, Samakka Saralamma Jatara and the glory of the Kakatiya Dynasty ,“ he said.

According to Bhaskar, six to seven rounds of meetings would be conducted after which a final decision would be taken on allowing the

Telangana tableau

.

It is learnt that the committee was impressed with the model and history of Medaram festival, a very popular festival for the worship of the goddesses of tribals, which attracts lakhs of people and is popularly called Telangana's Kumbh Mela.

It may be mentioned that the Telangana government had mooted Bathukamma as the theme for the R-Day parade for January 2016 and January 2017, and both the times it was not selected by the committee.However, Telangana had participated in the R-Day Parade in January 2015 with Bonalu as the theme of its tableau. Sammakka Saralakka Jatara is a Hindu tribal festival, held about 100 km from

Warangal

city .People offer jaggery equivalent to their weight to goddesses and take holy bath in Jampanna Vagu (stream).