It is the day to buy pichkaris, gulal, the colourful candied garlands, and have a sip of bhang or a bite of a bhang sweet before shouting 'Holi Hai'! Spray the colours, play some old holi songs, throw the pink gulal into air and rub it into the hair and join the revelry. But if you want a real taste of Hyderabadi holi, then it has to begin at Begum Bazaar, Purana Pul, Siddi Ambar Bazar and other nearby areas. A drive through the small zig-zagging lanes and bylanes on the other side of Musi shows the real exhilaration of the festival.

The festival of colours takes you by surprise at Purana Pul, where suddenly you encounter shops selling colours and sweets. So what if the liquor shops are closed? There is always bhang. "It is my fantasy to try bhang. Because, I just want to see how it feels and how you react after you drink that, I mean the bhang (laughs)," says Regina Cassandra, who remembers her holi from school days. Perhaps a drive around the gullies of Begum Bazar will help Regina, and other curious Hyderabadis like her, get an 'authentic' taste of Holi high.

"Today is the one day when nobody asks for a license or anything. This will give you a high for two hours," says Kamal, pointing to a bhang-laced gaudy green copra sweet. The other pushcart vendors are selling similar stuff from their vehicles with the liquid drink in two variations - one of thandai and the other, a lassi. "We make this bhang with the tender leaves of the plant (Cannabis) which is ground to a fine paste and used to make this sweet and the drinks. People start drinking this by evening and by tomorrow, I would have sold out most of my stuff," Rajesh, who has come from a Banjara thanda near Nagpur.

As noisy revelers stop by to drink the thandai and lassi in groups, it will be a haze of colours and memories of unrecognizable faces captured in crazed selfies.