HYDERABAD: After two years of gap, the denizens of the twin cities celebrated Holi with much enthusiasm on Friday. As usual, Holi was celebrated by people irrespective of caste and religion in residential colonies, apartments and gated communities across the city. People gathered and splashed colours on each other as part of the celebrations.
Since the day was an official holiday, all the main roads witnessed less traffic, thus providing a smooth ride for revellers who moved from place to place, shouting “Happy Holi”. NRIs who are here on a visit also enjoyed the fun.
Md Innayat and Md Iddayat, both brothers, celebrated the festival with their local friends with great fervour. Bengali communities at the Gulzar Houz and Kali Khaman who are mostly involved in making ornaments, closed their businesses to take part in the celebrations.
Rajasthani community, with around a hundred families at Hashmat Gunj, Begum Bazar, got together to celebrate the festival with true spirit of friendship and togetherness. Govind Narayan Rathi, president of Rajasthani association, said,
“After the Holika Dahan, the festival started. This is an important occasion for us, as friends from our community wish each other good luck. All the families took part in the Holi celebrations.”
Reena Jaiswal, resident of Bhagya Nagar Colony, Nampally, a gated colony with more than 200 flats, who celebrated the festival, said, “It’s been two years since we refrained from playing Holi. Today, most of the families came out and celebrated.”
Some families from the city planned the festival at a private venue. One such gathering took place at a farmhouse at Shamshabad, hosted by Sunil Agarwal, a businessman, “We invited all close relatives at a farmhouse and the celebrations went on till late evening. We had a lot of time to interact with each other, and the celebrations were great,” he said.
At Gachibowli, a group of Maharashtrian families gathered to celebrate Holi, with music and dances. Private event managers organised several programmes, inviting celebrities and arranging DJs.
