HYDERABAD: Old City as well as parts of the new city of Hyderabad wore a festive look on Sunday as thousands of devotees thronged Mahankali Temples and offered prayers on the occasion of Bonalu festival, an important festival of Telangana region.
Bonalu festival, which reflects Telangana’s rich culture and traditions, was celebrated with gaiety and devotion here on Sunday. Pulsating ‘Teen Maar’ drumbeats and folk songs reverberated from lanes and bylanes of Hyderabad city.
The festival was celebrated in both new and Old City with traditional gaiety and fervour amidst tight police security arrangements. Serpentine queues were seen at Mahankali temples across the city. Bonalu is celebrated to ward off evil and usher in peace and harmony.
Lal Darwaza Mahankali Temple and the historic Akkanna Madanna Mahankali temple, Hari Bowli in Shalibanda, the main centre of the Bonalu festivities in the Old City, witnessed a huge turnout of devotees, including ministers, MPs, MLAs, officials and political leaders.
Minister T Srinivas Yadav offered silk clothes on behalf of the state government at Lal Darwaza temple.
Legislative Council Chairman Swamy Goud, Assembly Deputy Speaker Padma Devender Reddy, TRS MP K Kavitha, Congress MP, R Anand Bhaskar and others offered prayers.
Attired in their best, women queued up at the temples to offer ‘Bonam’, which consists of cooked rice, jaggery, curd and turmeric water, carried in steel and clay pots on their heads.
The temples were decked up for the festival with special illumination buntings and festoons. The lanes were filled with processions of devotees and carrying of ghatams. Lanes and by-lanes reverberated with popular folk songs.
Sri Akkanna Madanna Mahankali Mandir, Haribowli President G Niranjan told Express the 11-day festival will conclude on Monday with the oracle prediction, ie, Rangam at 11 am, followed by a combined procession on a caparisoned elephant, carrying ‘Ghatam’ of the Goddess Mahankali.