Saree walk­a­thon flut­ters with fun, eleg­ance and empower­ment

Par­ti­cipants proudly walked in tra­di­tional sarees with vari­et­ies of drap­ing, col­ours and pat­terns sym­bol­ising the har­mo­ni­ous blend of her­it­age and mod­ern life­style.

The highly anti­cip­ated Saree Walk­a­thon 2026 held at the Perd­ana Botan­ical Garden here on Inter­na­tional Women’s Day recently drew enthu­si­astic par­ti­cip­a­tion from more than 1,000 women.

It turned out to be a unique cel­eb­ra­tion of cul­ture, unity, well­ness and women’s empower­ment. Par­ti­cipants proudly walked in tra­di­tional sarees with vari­et­ies of drap­ing, col­ours and pat­terns sym­bol­ising the har­mo­ni­ous blend of her­it­age and mod­ern life­style.

The event was organ­ised by Nutri Heart Malay­sia, in part­ner­ship with the Net­aji Subhas Chandra Bose Indian Cul­tural Centre (NSCBICC).

Chief guest Sen­ator Saraswathy Kan­dasami lauded the ini­ti­at­ive to pro­mote “nari shakti” (women power), emphas­ising the vital role women play in shap­ing fam­il­ies, com­munit­ies and nation.

“It was not only a won­der­ful event, but also a mean­ing­ful and neces­sary one that show­cased women, espe­cially Indian women, in the time­less eleg­ance of the saree,” she said.

“The com­ing together of Indian women from across the world marks another import­ant mile­stone in strength­en­ing our shared cul­tural iden­tity, her­it­age and unity.

“Such gath­er­ings remind us that when women stand together, cul­tures flour­ish and com­munit­ies grow stronger.”

What made the occa­sion addi­tion­ally impress­ive was the pres­ence of women from vari­ous nation­al­it­ies and races enthu­si­ast­ic­ally walk­ing in flam­boy­ant sarees.

Guest of hon­our Lal­ita Devi Reddy, wife of the Indian high com­mis­sioner, spoke about the import­ance of women pri­or­it­ising their health and well-being. She high­lighted the bene­fits of yoga, mind­ful eat­ing and healthy life­style prac­tices.

NSCBICC dir­ector Vijay­alak­shmy Sun­der­ra­jan high­lighted the centre’s com­mit­ment to pro­mot­ing Indian cul­ture through such innov­at­ive events that com­bine her­it­age with health aware­ness.

Event organ­iser Roo­pali Teg­gin­mani, founder of Nutri Heart, thanked the NSCBICC as well as the par­ti­cipants and part­ners for com­ing together in such a power­ful and inspir­ing way to cel­eb­rate Inter­na­tional Women’s Day.

The centre’s yoga instructor Dhanista Samar­iya con­duc­ted a yoga warm-up ses­sion that ener­gised par­ti­cipants before the offi­cial flag-off. Her stu­dents later presen­ted a rhythmic yoga per­form­ance at the end of the pro­gramme.