Date:07/08/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/08/07/stories/2007080774520200.htm

Andhra Pradesh

‘Business’ visitors for Bonalu

Swathi.V

Petty vendors from Gulbarga visit temples in Hyderabad to earn a living

Photo: K. Ramesh babu

tough life: Toy makers from Gulbarga in Karnataka make the most of Bonalu time selling their wares.

HYDERABAD: Bonalu, the popular festival celebrated in Telangana, also attracts scores of people from Gulbarga in Karnataka.

Devotion, however, is not the purpose of their arrival. It’s purely a “business” visit.

Petty vendors selling toys seen near Ujjain Mahankali or Lal Darwaza Temples during the festival, keep their ancestral nomadic tradition alive by wandering for livelihood.

Speaking in a language that remotely resembles Gujarati, they claim that their ancestors from the North had settled in Karnataka long ago.

Never entering temples

“We never went inside the temple,” reveals Roja, a 10-year old girl, carrying double her weight in a frame laden with the merchandise, predominantly war-toys such as bows, arrows, swords and catapults along with balloons and toy-mobiles.

She, along with her siblings -- all aged below 10, is here with her parents -- Parvati and Gad Singh -- and their kin.

“We will move from Mahankali temple to Lal Darwaza to Yellamma temple and be around till the jatara season gets over,” says Parvati.

While here, her band moves as far away as Suryapet selling its crafts made of wood, cardboard and chemki.

Regular visitors to the city for the past five years, they can be seen on the city platforms from a few weeks prior to Bonalu, shaping their toys. After the season, they return to their respective places in Karnataka.

Dasto, Parvati’s nephew and a boy in his early teens, says that he earns about Rs.200 by evening.