Erupts in colours of joy, revelry

Hyderabad: Hyderabadis soaked in the many colours of Holi and indulged in revelry through the day on Tuesday. Glimpses of festivity were on full display as people of all age groups thronged onto the streets to smear each other with gulal. Few children, with their loaded pichkaris, were seen running across small lanes.

Meanwhile, Hyderabad, which has an amalgamation of different cultures and religions celebrated the festival with renewed vigour and enthusiasm. Few communities were seen celebrating festivals of colours in the traditional way, and also few communities have planned to celebrate Holi on Wednesday. Apart from the multiple Holi parties that were organized at the IT corridor witnessed, larger numbers of youngsters were seen jubilating at the beats of peppy music.

Dilip Kumar Pansari, Vice President, Agarwal Samaj, Telangana State, said "Our Samaj has been playing Holi for the past 15 years in the city by following all the traditional customs. This year after observing Thandi Puja (a stick will be placed in the ground the previous day and in the early morning we observed Holika Dahan then immediately smeared colours among each other. This event continued till late afternoon, and later we community members gathered and organized a few cultural activities along with various delicious delicacies."

Holi teaches us the importance of equality and leaving their grudges behind and focusing on spreading colour and happiness, and this we try to implement in our day to day lives, he added.  Ahilya Mishra, member of Bihari Community, said, "This year as there is a little confusion of dates, we will be celebrating Holi on Wednesday and the previous day is called a choti holi , where we offer prayers to lord Krishna, and the next day we splash colours upon each other by greeting them.

For the past 53 years, our community has been celebrating the festival with a lot of enthusiasm using organic colours made of flowers and vegetables. In the evening we will be organizing Hasya Kavi Sammelan (Comedy Poet Convention)." "Recently, I moved to the city from Maharashtra and was wondering that this year I will be missing the festive environment, but I was wrong, I could spend wonderful time with my friends," said Anjali, IT employee.  "This year we had a blast, the festive mood gripped the entire day, along with my friends visiting one of the Holi parties," stated Monika, resident of Kukatpally.