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.
