Secunderabad comes alive with Bonalu

HYDERABAD: Most parts of Secunderabad were in a festive mood on Sunday as thousands of devotees thronged various Mahankali temples, including the 191 year old Sri Ujjaini Mahankali temple to celebrate 'Bonalu', a traditional Hindu festival of Telangana.

'Bonalu' is dedicated to the Mother Goddess Mahankali and is held in the month of Ashada Masam (July/August) every year.

It is celebrated to ward off evil and to usher peace and harmony. Womenfolk, dressed in their best traditional attire, carried 'bonam' (a pot carrying rice, turmeric powder, jaggery, milk and curd, covered with neem leaves and a lamp placed on top of it) on their heads to the Ujjaini Mahankali temple. The temple was decorated with buntings, festoons and neem leaves.

'Pothrajus', smeared with colours carried long whips and 'ghatams' as 'teen maar' drumbeats and Telugu folk songs reverberated the by-lanes of Secunderabad.

Separate queues were made for the convenience of devotees carrying 'bonalu'. Water sachets and 'prasadam' were supplied free of cost to the devotees, many of them from the surrounding districts of Rangareddy, Medak and Nalgonda.

The ritual of 'Rangam' (foretelling the future) by a young spinster will be performed on Monday at 9 am.

The devotees were interrupted by the visits of politicians, including chief minister N Kiran Kumar Reddy, for which they had to wait outside the temple for three long hours.

Eventually, when Reddy exited the temple, they expressed their frustration by raising slogans like 'CM down down'.

They were also unhappy with the discrimination meted out to them by the temple authorities by giving VIP treatment to the politicians. N Chandrababu Naidu, ministers C Ramachandraiah, Mukesh Goud, Danam Nagender, J Geetha Reddy, Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president Botcha Satyanarayana, deputy speaker Bhatti Vikramarka, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state president G Kishan Reddy, V Hanumanth Rao, Anjan Kumar Yadav offered prayers at the 19th century temple.

Apart from 'Lashkar Bonalu', devotees thronged different Mahankali temples in Ramgopalpet, Pan Bazar, R P Road and M G Road, Paradise, Mettuguda, Bhoiguda, Ranigunj and YMCA.

The festival will conclude on Monday with 'Rangam' and 'Ghatam' procession of Mahankali Goddess on an elephant in the neighbourhoods of Sri Ujjaini Mahankali temple. The temple deity was installed by soldiers from Ujjain, who were part of an army contingent trapped in cholera epidemic.