Bhogi bonfires warm up festivities

Hyderabad/Vijayawada: Bhogi marked the beginning of the three-day harvest festival of Sankranti in the two Telugu states on Sunday with people celebrating the occasion with bonfires in the early hours everywhere in major towns.

In villages in AP, Basavannas leading ornately decorated bulls, Haridasulu, Rangavalli, Gobbemmalu and in the evening Bhogi pandlu reflected the age-old tradition of celebration of the occasion when sun enters Makara Raasi which coincides with the farmers returning home with harvested paddy on bullock carts.

The bonfires also served the beginning of the inevitable cockfights in several towns in coastal districts of AP and in some places in Telangana too but the ground zero for the blood sport was undoubtedly West Godavari where the sport went on without any inhibition at a number of arenas set up by the organisers. It is said that the stakes would be very high, and hundreds of crores of rupees change hands in the gambling sport.

Hyderabad roads wore a deserted look with a number of Andhra origin people having left for homes for family reunion in AP. Over 40 trains and about 4,000 special buses are being operated in both the states for the festival to ferry people from Hyderabad, Vijayawada and other cities to various towns and back.

If Gangireddu and Rangavalli in front of houses remained hallmarks of Sankranti in AP, it is kites that bore testimony to Sankranti spirit across Telangana. The state government, coinciding with the Sankranti, has organised an international kite festival which began on Saturday. The government also inaugurated a three-day sweet festival at Parade Grounds which would conclude on Monday.

While women and children celebrated the occasion at home, the men were out at the arenas where cockfights were being organised. Though the Supreme Court has made it clear that it should be a sport for entertainment and that no gambling and no cruelty against animals should take place, no one bothered about the guidelines and went ahead with the blood sport.

In West Godavari, police conducted raids on various rings and close some of them by the evening. The main event at Vempa was stopped by the police. In Bhimavaram and other areas also cockfights were organised. In Dwaraka Tirumala mandal, the contests were held in places, including Kommara, Gunnampalli. Hyderabad Municipal Corporation Corporator Vijaya Reddy and her husband Avinash Reddy witnessed cockfight in Gunnampalli village of Dwaraka Tirumala mandal. Cockfight contests began on a massive scale in many parts of Krishna district. They are being organised in Nuzvid, Musunuru, Kankipadu, Gudivada, Chatrai, Agiripalli, Mylavaram and other mandals of the district.

The organisers have made preparations long time ago after training the roosters and feeding them with high protein diet to win the bloody contests where the birds die within minutes. Punters have also made elaborate arrangements to collect and transfer the money at the arena. The punters will increase stakes on Monday as there were no police check on the conduct of cruel game.

In East Godavari, people’s representative inaugurated the blood sport (with knives) in the guise of traditional sport (without knives) tied to cocks. In Muramalla, Mummidivaram MLA Datla Subba Raju inaugurated traditional cockfights in the arena in which cockfights held last year. All facilities arranged for the people coming to witness cockfights.