Ganesh festival brings Hindu-Muslim partnerships to Hyderabad mandapams

As Hyderabad prepares for the 11-day Ganesh festival, Muslim craftsmen, decorators, suppliers, drivers and sweet makers are working with Hindu organisers across the city. Their long-standing partnerships, built around everyday festival services, highlight Hyderabad’s tradition of shared participation and communal harmony.

Hyderabad: As the city gets ready for the 11-day Ganesh festival, preparations at hundreds of mandapams are bringing together people across communities, with Muslim craftsmen, decorators, bandmasters, drivers and suppliers taking up assignments and, in the process, offering a quiet example of Hyderabad’s syncretic culture.

For Mohd Hafeez, the festival is a busy season. A supplier of function items, he provides utensils, tents and other articles required for food camps organised at mandapams. His supplies are used by volunteers serving food to devotees and visitors during the celebrations.

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Mohd Shakeel, a flower decorator, has already taken several bookings. “We decorate the mandapams with flowers and, during the final days, we also decorate the trucks carrying the idols for the immersion processions,” he said.

Illumination is another essential part of the festivities. Mohd Nooruddin has been providing disco lights, floodlights and serial bulbs for Ganesh mandapams and their surroundings for years. “I have a permanent set of customers. They call me nearly two months in advance and remind me about the assignment,” he said.

In Chandrayangutta, the preparations take a different form. Huma Sweet House has for years been making laddus for the festival. Its proprietor, Sayeed Bin Mohammed Bahbela, describes the tradition as an expression of communal harmony, with Hindu devotees placing orders for the festival.

For these workers, the festival is not merely a seasonal opportunity to earn a livelihood. Many have built enduring relationships with organisers and return year after year to undertake assignments that have become part of their routine.

From tents and utensils to flowers, lights, transport and laddus, their contribution is woven into the celebrations. In a city known for its composite culture, such everyday partnerships between Hindu organisers and Muslim service providers underline how festivals can transcend religious boundaries and become occasions of shared participation.