Secunderabad Bonalu kicks off amid fanfare, gaiety

Festivities begin before break of dawn; MLC Kavitha offers bonam in gold vessel

Devotees carrying a gigantic paper structure known as ‘thottelu’ to be offered as a token of respect to the goddess at the Sri Ujjaini Mahankali Temple in Secunderabad on Sunday, | Photo Credit: RAMAKRISHNA G

The lanes and bylanes of Secunderabad came alive as the famous Sri Ujjaini Mahankali Bonalu celebrations kicked off early on Sunday.

All roads leading to the Ujjaini Mahankali temple were decorated with festoons, streamers and colourful LED lights. Darshan commenced at 4 a.m. after a special puja and continued late into the night as lakhs of devotees participated in Bonalu. Devotional songs rent the air even as youngsters and children broke into a jig.

This year, the temple authorities set up more queues to avoid congestion as women stood in the long serpentine queues for hours together, carrying the traditional bonam on their heads. They made sure that women folk got darshan in less than 15 minutes, except when the queues were stopped in view of special darshan for VIPs. There was a lot of enthusiasm among devotees as this was the first Bonalu without much COVID-19 restrictions in the past two years.

“We had come for Mahankali amma’s darshan last year and in 2020 too, but this year is very special, as amma has yielded to our prayers and the impact of the deadly virus has come down,” Satish Yadav, a devotee from West Marredpally said.

A young girl decked in traditional attire carrying a bonam to the Sri Ujjaini Mahankali temple on Sunday. | Photo Credit: RAMAKRISHNA G

The festival is special for women folk, who wake up early, prepare the bonam in an earthen pot or a brass vessel, apply pasupu and kumkum and tie a sacred thread around it. On Sunday morning, the familiar sight of women stepping out of their homes dressed in traditional attire and jewellery, carrying the bonam on their heads, marked the beginning of the festivities. They joined the queues at the temple for darshan of the goddess.

Telangana Rashtra Samithi MLC and Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao’s daughter K. Kavitha offered the bonam in a gold vessel at Sri Ujjaini Mahakali Devasthnam. With a large number of women following her in a procession, Ms. Kavitha walked to the temple from Audiah Nagar and offered the bonam. “I prayed for the well-being of the State. No one should incur losses,” she said.

There were traditional dances by Potharaju, kolatam and artistes dressed as tigers. This year, the Mahankali Jatara will see the procession led by the elephant Lakshmi from the Virupaksha Math in Hampi on Monday.

The Bonalu tradition began in 1815 and was declared a State festival after the formation of the Telangana in 2014.