Golconda Bonalu 2026 begins with gaity as thousands converge on hill-fort to make offerings to Goddess

The noisy rambunctious celebrations of Bonalu, the annual month-long festival of Goddesses in Telangana, began on Thursday (July 17, 2026) with thousands of pilgrims converging at the Golconda fort in Hyderabad in the afternoon. The pilgrims carrying their offerings in an earthen pot made the offerings to the Goddess Jagadambika — whose temple is at one of the highest point of the hillock. The festival begins on the first Thursday of Aashadam, according to the Hindu calendar.

The main procession started from the small temple near Langar Houz, a distance of about 800-metres to the main doorway of the inner fortification of Golconda. As potharajus, the traditional priests chanted, ululated the prayers to the Goddess, drummers kept up a steady rhythm while some other bare-torsoed potharajus swung their whips around and others showed swordplay. Men and women dressed up in festive finery with some of them cross-dressing danced their way to the top of the hill.

The fort was overrun with policemen who threw a cordon of security. The other civic bodies like the Hyderabad Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board and Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation deployed hundreds of staffers to take care of water supply and sanitation in the vast grounds of the fort as devotees prepared food and distributed among their friends and relatives.

“Bonalu means food offering. We offer it as naivadeyam (ritual food). My role is to carry it to the hill and offer it to the Goddess,” said Golnaka Sai Bonam, a Jogini, who had already made the offerings. The rest of the year, she makes astrological service to the believers.

Among the devotees who has made the pilgrimage was Anil Swamy from Shadnagar — which is about 60 km from Hyderabad. “We make the offering of parvanam (milk porridge with rice), peruguannam (curd rice), aku kuru (leafy vegetable), pachchi pulusu (a tamarind preparation). We sacrificed a lamb, others sacrifice chickens as well. These all form part of the offering so that the bounty of the Goddess remains with us,” he said, while applying make up.

Bonalu celebrations at Golconda fort in Hyderabad on July 16, 2026
| Video Credit:
SERISH NANISETTI