By Staff Writer
June 2, 2014, the day India gave birth to its 29th state, Telangana. It’s the day a 50-year-old struggle initiated by the people of Telangana has won. It’s the day many souls of the activists, who gave their lives for the Telangana movement, went to rest in peace. It’s the day a vision of many social activists like Prof. Jayashankar has become a reality.
To celebrate this wonderful Telangana formation day in Chicago area, Chicago Telangana Association (CHITA) has organized a “Vana Bhojanalu” event. In the Telangana region, family and friends gather together to go into the woods, offer prayers to the God and Goddesses, cook the food, consume it in mother nature’s lap, have a fun time with family and friends. CHITA considers all the people from Telangana community its family and friends. CHITA invited all its family and friends to Vana Bhojanalu event on the 4th Telangana formation day, Jun 2, 2018 @ 11:00 AM at Springbrook Praire Forest Preserve in Naperville, IL.
It turned out to be a very good day, not too cold or hot, perfect day for the outdoors. It seemed like Mother Nature welcomed the people of Telangana to come and celebrate the auspicious day. Volunteers came in early to make all the arrangements for the event. All the CHITA family and friends pitched in a dish for this potluck event. The dish that is famous in the Telangana region is “Gudaalu”, made out of corn, black-eyed peas etc. One of the family members brought in the dish with an added twist, chicken, in it and the dish was, of course, a hot cake. The volunteers cooked the famous Telangana chicken curry and served it hot to the family members. The kids did the obvious thing they do when we take them to the park, start playing from the very minute they came to the event.
CHITA president, Manoj Kondam, addressed the crowd and thanked everybody for participating in the event and bringing a dish to share, reminded all the family members to keep the park clean while having fun at the same time. He asked all the crowd to remember “Telangana Amara Veerulu”, asked them to observe a 2-minute silence to honor their souls. The park went dead silence for 2 minutes. Well, the kids did not understand what was going on, but I am sure they will have questions regarding that moment and they will eventually come to know the history of Telangana once they know why we do this kind of respect gestures.
After a delicious lunch, the kids and adults switched their roles. Women started playing a South Indian game, Kho-Kho. It reminds us on how we had fun and stayed fit at the same time in childhood. The men started playing India’s favorite game, Cricket. Later there were dances for Bollywood and Tollywood numbers. The event was very enthusiastic, fun and electrifying.
CHITA Vice President, Vittal Kumar Eravelli and General Secretary, Neelima Akula thanked everyone for coming and supporting the event and thanked all the Volunteers and the Board for their efforts. Leadership team announced this year ‘Bathukamma’ (Floral Festival) celebrations will take place on Saturday, Sept 29th, 2018 at Naperville Grand Pavilion to honor the mother nature and Telangana culture and requested everyone to come and participate with lot of enthusiasm.
The event ended with a slogan “Johaar Telangana Aamara Veerulaku, Johaar”!
