‘PONGALA’ THE SHOW STOPPER
Unlike the Swamy Ayappan of Sabarimalai who is a strict ritualistic
disciplinarian and a ‘strictly males only’ centric God, who doesn't let any
able bodied females come anywhere near the premises of the temple, the
Devi Mata is more humane, motherly and approachable to all her Bhakthagan male
or female alike. However during the celebration period of PONGAL, she also
takes a cue from Sabarimalai. It is a strictly a ladies affair of Pooja and
celebrations limiting their male counterparts strictly into playing only a
supporting role.
But what
is so special about this temple and why are we talking about it in the same
breath as the mighty Lord Padmanabha Swamy ? Indeed there are many things about
this temple which are unique to themselves, never seen anywhere else in any
other part of the world.
I am not
here to discuss the ‘who, where, why, when and how ‘of this great Deity.
Those details can be easily found with a few clicks of the mouse under the
guidance of Google and Wikipedia. It is
however, the conduct of the Pongala festival per se, which has mesmerised me no
end that I am going write about and present you an outsider’s perspective.
The
Attukal Pongala Mahotsavam festival is celebrated for 10 days in the MAKARAM
KUMBHAM month of Malayali calender which generally falls in the month of Feb -
Mar every year. The Pongala made of rice jaggery and coconut is offered to the
Deity on the penultimate day. This exclusive
festival being celebrated in honour of the lady Deity and exclusively by the
ladies, the ladies in this part of the world await for these days with great
reverence and anticipation. The ladies are expected to come to the temple,
offer their prayers, cook the Pongala in the temple premises /surroundings with
the fire lit in the temple premises and passed on to all the devotees for
cooking. It is generally cooked in an
earthen pot using dried coconut branches for burning. All cooking is done at
the appointed auspicious time and Pongala is offered to the Deity. A simple ritual if
done within the confines of the temple compounds.
The real
challenge of conducting Pongala comes to the fore when we realise that the lady
devotees who assemble on this appointed
day are not in scores or hundreds or thousands but in millions. It was on
this Pongala day in 2011 that a team from Guinness Book of World Records came
to witness the event and officially recorded that, this ongregation of women in
excess of 3.5 million, was the largest on a single day anywhere in the world. A certificate to that effect has been proudly
displayed in the temple premises by the temple trust.
The Trivandrum
Municipal Corporation has a daunting task in managing this huge congregation of
ladies for a safe and organised conduct of the festival.
With the
ever increasing popularity and aastha in this festival, it has been estimated
that around 4.5 million women congregated for the festival on 05th March 2015.
The
temple premises can at the most provide space for a couple of thousand devotees
to settle for the Pongala cooking ceremony. The remaining are naturally obliged
to settle along the roads all leading to the temple. As regards the number of
temporary hearths which are set up for the Pongala cooking, it can be mind
boggling. By very reasonable estimates, if we expect about four ladies per
family to come for these rituals, for a ladies’ strength of about 4.5 million,
hearths in excess of one million would easily be lit up.
The
Corporation here undertakes to provide bricks to the devotees to set up their
hearths for cooking. At the rate of three bricks per hearth, easily, bricks in
excess of three million are procured and placed in small small piles along the
roads for the ease of the devotees to pick up and use.
A large
number of volunteers come up to serve the devotees with water, lemons, dried
fire wood or coconut three branches some food etc on as required basis. All
available ambulance vehicles and fire tenders are placed on call in the near
vicinity. Nearly three fourth of the roads in Trivandrum are declared as
festival zones where vehicle movement is severely restricted. All schools,
colleges and offices are closed in service of the Deity and her beloved
devotees.
Analysing
this ritual from the Lady devotees perspective , the main challenge for
them is to find a suitable place for cooking the Pongala as close as possible
to the Attukal temple. If not in the temple premises, then places along the
roads as close as possible to the temple are chosen. I was surprised to see
that people come as early as 3 to 4 days to secure those prized locations
within the temple premises for setting up their hearths on the appointed day.
Ladies
coming from different parts of Kerala and nearby States come by all means of
transport a day in advance. I also heard Railways do not check for any tickets
on these two days. Whether it is by design, default or difficulty, I do not know.
All the
ladies fresh after a bath, wearing the traditional cream coloured set sarees/set
mundu, with chandanam and thilakam applied onto their foreheads, and a thorth/small piece of
white cloth tied over their heads to soak the excess water from the wet hair,
moving around and greeting each other, is a splendid sight. These ladies, along
with the pongala ingredients come in the wee hours of the morning and take up a
suitable available in place along the road. The hearth is set up, and kept
ready for preparation of Pongala. It is
a sea of ladies all settled along the road and in available open spaces ,
smiling, laughing, chatting, chanting and praying, awaiting for the appointed
time of Pooja at the Attukal temple.
Perhaps it is one day in the year...
when Lord Padmanabha Swamy also gets to carry out a reality check of His own perceived popularity. On all other
days His temple is inundated with devotees with hardly any time for his little
privacy. On this pongala day the focus is entirely on Attukal Devi.
There is little or no way for anyone
visit His temple. The Pongala Bhakthagan settled along all the paths are all busy with the Devi
Pooja with their backs to the Lord Padmanabha Swamy. May be it is His leela in
his own inimitable style to take a day off !!!
Cutting
the long story short, at the Attukal Devi temple, various Pooja are
performed in the morning and at the
appointed time around 11AM, the auspicious fire from the temple is passed on to
the nearest devotee to light up the hearth for cooking of Pongala. The fire is
then passed on sequentially to all the hearths in the vicinity and along all roads
to light up all the hearths.... Yes, I mean to more than a million hearths!!!
Now the
Pongala preparation has to be offered to
the Deity. You may wonder how. The Attukal Devi Bhagavathy, all kindness
personified that she is... goes to the devotees herself instead of they coming to her to the
temple. As a mark of accepting this Pongala, a mini army of Pandits
of the temple trust, carrying with them the holy water or the theertham go in all
directions of the city where the devotees are ready with the cooked Pongala.
They sprinkle the theertham into every
pot along with chanting of mantras thus signifying that the Deity accepted the Pongala
from all her devotees and has blessed them.
The devotees in turn, with reverance in their eyes and bhakti bhav in their
minds distribute and consume this Pongala as Prasadam. All these rituals get
over by about 4 PM.
Now the battle in the real life begins for all the ladies and their families to reach their homes and reach safely.
A time
when the entire city of Trivandrum stops all other activities to ensure safe
and successful conduct of this one and only unique festival in the entire
world, isn't PONGALA a show stopper
!
Nice blog Satish. I had the opportunity of being in Trivandrum on the very day in 2012. Not aware of the festival as I stepped outside the hotel I was amazed to see the line up of ladies on either side of the road. To determine the source I walked the entire 5 km to the the gates of the temple and believe me there was not much space along the entire way.
ReplyDeleteBut what impressed me the most was that after the prasad was done by the evening, all the streets of Trivandurm were back to their pristine self! Very very impressive
Thanks Pradeep. The event is growing bigger and bigger with every passing year. Kudos to the city administration for their untiring efforts in smooth conduct of the festival.
ReplyDeleteVery good write up.Enjoyed reading and actually could feel the festival in the words.Keep writing.
DeleteVery good write up.Enjoyed reading and actually could feel the festival in the words.Keep writing.
DeleteThanks Vajra for your encouraging words.
DeleteVery informative writeup. Well written.
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