K M Dayashankar
KARIMNAGAR, JULY 26, 2024: Students of Johnson Global School in Karimnagar town celebrated the traditional Ashadam Bonalu festival with religious fervour and gaiety on Friday.
The school was colourfully decorated with flowers, neem and mango leaves and the students have arrived in their best attire. The girl students with the support of their teachers decorated the bonam with neem leaves, turmeric paste, vermillion and kumkum and lamps. The boys donned the role of potharajus and ‘puli vesham’ and danced to the traditional ‘teen maar’ beats.
The schools campus reverberated with the “Mahankali amma ki jai” and rhythmic beats. The students carrying neem leaves danced in a trance as the girl students donning the role of ‘Ammoru’ danced in a frenzied manner to the traditional folk songs of Mahankali jatara.
Besides, the potharajus role donned by the boy students was also a special attraction with their dance sequences by smearing their body with turmeric and vermillion and wearing lemons garland. The students in their traditional attire carried ‘Bonam’, a new earthen pot containing the rice cooked with turmeric, which acts as anti-biotic, and nutritional jaggery and milk and decorated with neem leaves, on their heads in a procession led by Potharajus amid drum beats.
School Chairman Mahipal Reddy, Directors Varaprasad Ram Reddy, Simhachalam Harikrishna, Vangala Santosh Reddy also and others participated with enthusiasm in the festivities and danced to the traditional beats to encourage the students.
