Bonalu
बोनालुSunday · Mahakali
Folk Mahakali festival of Telangana observed across the Sundays of Ashada masa, peaking at the Golconda Fort Jagadambika temple and Secunderabad Ujjaini Mahakali. Women carry "bonam" (offering) — earthen pots stacked with cooked rice, jaggery, milk, and curd, lit with a deepa and crowned with neem leaves — on their heads in procession to the Devi temple as gratitude for surviving the rainy-season epidemics.
Key rituals
- •Bonam pot preparation at home with new earthenware
- •Procession to Mahakali temple with drums and Pothurajulu dancers
- •Rangam — a woman in trance prophesies the coming year while balanced on an earthen pot