HYDERABAD: After two years of Covid-induced lockdown lull, Diwali, the festival of lights, was celebrated with grandeur, with people from all walks of life exemplifying the genuine spirit of the city's renowned Ganga Jamuna Tehzeeb.
The festival was celebrated with a great deal of enthusiasm, from lighting ‘diyas’ to cleaning homes and decorating them with lights, LEDs and rangolis.
Adults and children dressed in their best traditional clothes visited temples. Before setting off firecrackers in the evening, a special prayer was offered to Goddess Lakshmi.
The gatherings of relatives and friends exchanging gifts and sweets were bathed in pleasant and colourful lights and earthen lamps. Compared to prior years, sweet shops did roaring business as throngs of people flocked to them, while cracker shops had a cracker of a time.
On the day of the celebration, the marketplaces in Begum Bazaar, Badi Chowdi, General Bazaar, Chikkadpally, Dilsukhnagar, and Medidipatnam were crowded with shoppers.
Numerous thousands of people descended upon congested bazaars to shop, reigniting the Diwali spirit that had been muted over the previous two years due to Covid-19 limitations. Flowers, lanterns, and candles were being purchased at a frantic pace in the marketplaces in order to decorate homes and businesses.
Fireworks were set off all throughout the city, with Banjara Hills, Himayatnagar, Basheerbagh, Malakpet, and Osmangunj seeing particularly noisy street celebrations. Numerous colourful fancy crackers had been set ablaze by store owners, particularly those who dealt in gold ornaments and precious stones, from Gunfoundry to the end of Abids Road.
