Hyderabad celebrates Sadar festival with vibrant buffalo carnival, music, and tradition

Hyderabad’s Yadav community celebrates the annual Sadar buffalo carnival, blending tradition, music, and devotion. Prized buffaloes parade through decorated streets, with rituals rooted in a 1946 legacy that honors heritage, abundance, and the sacred bond between humans and cattle.

Hyderabad: As the glow of Diwali lamps begins to fade, the streets of Hyderabad light up yet again, this time with drums, dance, and the thunderous trot of decorated buffaloes for ‘Sadar’.

It is the much loved buffalo carnival of the yadav community in the city which is celebrated with devotion, colour and a touch of rustic grandeur.

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Known locally as ‘Dunnapothula Panduga’ (Festival of the Buffaloes), Sadar is a spectacle that blends tradition with celebration. It falls on the second day after Diwali, when prized buffaloes, their horns painted in bright colours and bodies draped with garlands and glitter, come onto the roads and take centre stage in grand processions. Men dance to the beats of the teen maar band or ‘Yadav Band’. During the processions, animals are often coaxed to rise majestically on their hind legs, with cheers from the crowd.

A tradition that began in 1946:

The heart of the celebration beats strongest at Narayanguda YMCA, where the festival began in 1946, founded by the late Salandri Nyayam Chowdhary Mallaiah Yadav.

What started as a community gathering has gradually over the decades grown into a major citywide event, drawing thousands each year.

The Narayanguda celebration, often called the ‘Pedha Sadar’, is still organised by Mallaiah Yadav’s family, maintaining an unbroken legacy for nearly eight decades.

The festivities begin with ‘Go Puja’, a ritual variant of ‘Govardhan Puja’. A symbolic hill representing Mount Govardhan is crafted from cow dung, decorated with rangoli, puffed rice, sweets, and earthen pots.

When the first buffalo steps forward to stomp on the lit diya placed atop the offering, the carnival officially begins, a moment that signifies devotion, abundance, and the deep bond between humans and cattle.

While Narayanguda’s Pedha Sadar remains the biggest draw, the spirit of the festival echoes across the city. Other major celebrations are also held at Shaikpet-Darga, Deepak Talkies, Saidabad, Khairatabad, Ameerpet, Karwan, Langer Houz, and Madhapur. Each locality adds its own flair, some focus on traditional music, others on grand parades or buffalo contests.

For the Yadav community, Sadar is more than a post-Diwali carnival. It is a proud expression of heritage.

“Our buffaloes are part of our lives and livelihood. Sadar is our way of honouring them,” said Edla Hari Babu Yadav, a local organiser from Musheerabad.

Meanwhile, some say that during the Nizam era, several buffaloes in the city were struck by a mysterious illness that caused widespread deaths, leaving the Yadav community deeply distressed.

Moved by their plight, Mallaiah Yadav travelled all the way to Ujjain in Madhya Pradesh to seek the blessings of Goddess Mahankali. He performed special rituals there for the well-being of the buffaloes and brought back the ‘prasadam’ to Hyderabad. The buffaloes that consumed it gradually regained their health, a miracle the community attributed to the goddess’s grace.

In gratitude, Mallaiah Yadav began organising an annual thanksgiving celebration, which evolved into what is now known as the ‘Sadar Buffalo Carnival’.