LUCKNOW: Sultry weather failed to daunt devotees from thronging temples throughout the day to celebrate the first Bada Mangal.
Hanuman temples began reverberating with Sundarkand paaths, bhajans and Hanuman chaalisa since the wee hours of the day.
Being a one of its kind festival in the city, Bada Mangal is endemic to Lucknow, which beautifully portrays amity.
On Tuesday, lakhs of city folks had a delectable feast, irrespective of religion, caste or creed. More than 5,000 kiosks set up in every nook and corner of the city offered a lavish spread ranging from poori-sabzi, chola bhatura, kadi-chawal to laddoos, coldrinks, juices, halwa and kheer.
“”Purana Hanuman Mandir in Aliganj is one of the finest examples of communal harmony of Awadh as it has a crescent over its dome which symbolizes the Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb of Lucknow,”” he added.
“”It gives me immense pleasure to witness that irrespective of faith, every Lucknowite relishes the importance of Bada Mangal and therefore, we make sure that prasad is distributed to every person passing by,”” said Shivam Arora, who puts up a bhandara on University Road every year.
Divine Tuesday
– More than 5,000 bhandaras organized in city
– Cost of bhandaras ranges from Rs 35,000 to Rs 3 lakh
– Visitors at Hanuman setu included, Governor BL Joshi, Mayor Dinesh Sharma, Rajnath Singh’s wife
– CM Akhilesh Yadav’s children were seen distributing food among devotees at the temple”