Devotees celebrate Bonalu festival with pomp in Secunderabad

Hyderabad: The two-day colorful Bonalu festival at the historic Sri Ujjaini Mahankali Temple in Secunderabad started on a spectacular note on Sunday with devotees turning out in large numbers.

Clad in pattu sarees, women offered ‘bonam’ to the Goddess Sri Mahankali with cooked rice mixed with jiggery in a pot decorated with vermillion and turmeric as thanksgiving for fulfilling their wishes. Large serpentine queues of devotees were seen on the lanes abutting the temple to visit to offer prayers since morning.

To avoid any inconvenience to devotees, the police put up barricades at the lanes near Anjali theatre, Subash Bazaar and other areas to ensure a proper queue system. Separate queues were provided for the women thronging the temple to offer ‘bonam’.

After the BC Welfare Minister Ponam Prabhakar offered the first ‘bonam’ to the Goddess with his family members in the early hours followed by special pooja, the temple officials allowed the devotees waiting in the queues to have darshan of the Goddess.

The lanes in Secunderabad reverberated with Bonalu folk songs as the youth and elders danced in their own style. The main attraction of the celebrations is the dancing of ‘Potharajus’ with vermillion and turmeric pasted smeared all over their body.

Chief Minister A Revanth Reddy, Union Coal Minister G Kishan Reddy and other senior leaders visited the temple and offered special prayers. While Revanth Reddy offered ‘pattu’ clothes to the Goddess, Kishan Reddy and his family offered ‘bonam’.

In view of the celebrations, the Endowments department decorated the temple with colourful flowers, which attracted devotees. All the lanes abutting the temple were illuminated with colourful LED lights. The police tightened the security at the temple allowing only elected representatives from the main entrance at the Mahankali police station.

More women constables were deployed to keep a tab on those creating nuisance near the temple and its surroundings.

The festival will conclude on Monday with ‘Rangam’ ritual in which a woman invokes Goddess Mahankali onto herself and predicts the future of the State and the people ahead, standing on a wet earthen pot. This would be followed by a procession of caparisoned elephant, with the portrait of the Goddess atop marking the conclusion of the celebrations.