By Rina Chandran

HYDERABAD, India, Aug 26 (Reuters) - Hundreds of weddings, housewarmings and new business ventures had been scheduled in India's southern city of Hyderabad on Sunday, considered an auspicious day in the Hindu calendar.

Instead, grieving relatives were waiting for news of those wounded, or they were burying or cremating victims of Saturday night's blasts that killed at least 40 people.

One bomb went off at a packed fast-food centre and two others at an amusement park while a laser light show was on. Scores of people were wounded.

Police have defused another 19 bombs -- fitted with timers and placed in plastic bags -- at bus stops, cinemas, road junctions and pedestrian bridges, across the city.

At a private hospital where several of the wounded were admitted, anxious relatives looked weary after spending the night sitting in plastic chairs in the waiting hall.

"I had gone shopping with my mother and we had stopped to eat," said Pawan Aggarwal from a hospital bed. He was being treated for injuries from the blast at the popular fast-food centre. His mother, unhurt from the attacks, had maintained a vigil overnight at the hospital.

"We were somewhat lucky -- we saw so many people dead. There was blood everywhere," he added.

Aggarwal, 27, will be operated on later in the day to remove pellets lodged in his torso.

The blasts in this city -- where slick malls and gleaming IT offices rub shoulders with crumbling forts and ancient mosques -- are the latest in a series of attacks in India's teeming urban centres over the past two years, including New Delhi and the commercial hub of Mumbai. Hundreds have died.

Police were probing the role of Islamist militants, blamed for other recent bombings in different cities.

As the day wore on, some semblance of normality returned. Boys played cricket on the streets. People went about daily chores and there was even the occasional muted sounds of music playing in decorated wedding halls.

But for Uday Kumar, who suffered head injuries from the blast at the fast-food centre, memories of Saturday will be hard to erase.

"I didn't even want to go to Gokul (the food centre), but my friend forced me to go," said Kumar, his head swathed in a thick bandage.

"He was standing right behind me and we were just arguing about who would pay when there was a blast. Now he is seriously injured and I don't know what will happen to him," he added.

"Small children have been killed -- it's just terrible," he said, turning to face the wall.

At the main city morgue, sobbing relatives and friends of victims held on to each other for support. They waited for police to call them in to identify the bodies, many badly mutilated.

"They had come to shop and had stopped for a bite. Now they are all gone," said Bhaskar, 41, a family friend of two teenage girls and a young woman who died at the popular eatery.

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