Bonalu celebrations in Auckland. Photo: Supplied/New Zealand Telangana Central Association
The New Zealand Telangana Central Association and Telangana Association of New Zealand celebrated the annual Bonalu festival on 20 July in Auckland, with hundreds of devotees attending.
The festival, which is popular in the southern Indian states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, celebrates Hindu goddess Mahakali.
On this day, women dressed in traditional clothes carry bonalu (offerings made of rice, jaggery, yoghurt and water that are kept in a pot decorated with turmeric and neem leaves) on their heads and perform a parikrama ritual, moving clockwise around a temple in an act of devotion.
The bonalu are then offered to the goddess as devotees seek her blessing.
According to the Indian government, the origins of the festival date back to the 19th century when a military battalion in the Indian city of Hyderabad prayed to the goddess to eradicate a plague that was devastating the city.
Devotees believe the goddess eradicated the disease, and the battalion installed an idol of her in the city in honour of her actions.
In Auckland, the bonalu ritual was performed at the Shri Ganesha Temple in Papakura and Mt Eden War Memorial Hall, with a communal meal featuring sacred offerings in the form of food to the gods called mahaprasadam highlighting the celebrations.
"Apart from the traditional bonalu procession, we also performed other rituals including dravya abhishekam (bathing the deity with milk, water or honey), shakambari alankaranam (decorating the goddess with vegetables) and thrishathi archana (chanting the goddess' 300 names)," said Kalyan Rao Kasuganti, president of New Zealand Telangana Central Association.
"Bonalu this year stood as a true symbol of devotion, cultural pride and community spirit."
