Showing posts with label maha radham day. Show all posts
Showing posts with label maha radham day. Show all posts

8 December 2008

Big Car Festival


Click to enlarge all photographs



THE BIG DAY


In conjunction with the below photographs taken of today's great Maha Radham -- The Big Car Festival, I am also posting the next part of the excellent, descriptive narrative on 'The Festival of Light,' by Apeetha Arunagiri.

"There are several Big Cars, huge wooden carts carved with fabulous mythological figures telling all the stories, with the biggest wheels in the world; the biggest car dwarfs all the buildings in town except the giant temple towers. It is called The Big Car.

Our temple elephant leads the procession. Several elephants come for Deepam, most of them beggars; they walk from wherever they come from. On this day parents or family members also carry their babies around the procession route. They string a sari on a sugar-cane pole which they support on their shoulders making a hammock for the child. The babies carried are ones whose parents asked Arunachala to bless them with so they are carried in thanksgiving.


The splendid bronze figures of Annamalai and Unnamalai - male and female personifications of Arunachala, are heavily garlanded and bejeweled, seated up on The Biggest Car; the towering edifice is covered with long strips of embroidered cloth and gigantic flower garlands. There are several big cars pulled before and after The Big Car; there’s a women-only one carrying Abhithakuchalambal, and there’s also a kids’ car, which trails flamboyantly at the end.

It's all stupendously awesome.







Years ago we used to walk in to watch the Big Car come up the incline of one main street around midday; for years and years and years, we’d all have lunch in ashram and then everyone would make their way around to the east face of the hill to meet the gods coming up Thiruvoodal street. But now there are so many pilgrims that the schedule has extended interminably. Inauspicious times of the day intervene so the proceedings stop until the bad hour has passed, and there’s also the time when suddenly everyone goes home for lunch.









That year it was evening before the Big Car reached that street. My daughter’s two children - Hari and Ani - were very young so we secured a protected view from the balcony of a cloth shop half way down the incline, long before the towering, tottering, embroidered, garlanded Big Car - with it’s flouncing umbrella on the very top, appeared above the roofs of the shops and maneuvered itself into position for the strenuous haul up towards Arunachala.



Upon the up-roaring signal of its visibility from the crowd, Hari dropped his pile of coat-hangers and rushed to be held up over the balcony. His eyes popped, his ears flapped. Even though we’d seen it before, nothing can prepare us for the majesty of its annual sight. Below us the street was a sea of heads; all balconies and rooftops up and down the street full of faces and now that the Big Car appeared, bodies behind us pressed forward, pushing us onto the balcony rails festooned with dubious electrical fairy lights. It’s quite exciting.




Since the divinities are coming, dedicated persons don’t wear shoes. This year we noticed one Policewoman wearing socks to protect her dainty feet from the yucky street. About five thousand pilgrims pull the cart around the temple circuit-route, ladies on one side and gents on t’other. When the car stops, big chocks of heavy wood are wedged underneath the enormous wheels while the pullers take a rest and offerings are made to their majesties the gods. When ready to start again, young men with enthusiasm climb up onto the chocks with poles to steady themselves, and on signal they jump up and down on the slanted chocks until their force pushes the wheels forward, giving momentum for the pullers to haul the cart further up the street.




Looking down into the crowd below as the cart passed beneath us, we were treated to a seething mass of human energy - drums beating in time to muscles, bystanders shouting encouragement, enormous wheels slowly turning, the carving on the cart creaking, embroidery panels blowing in the wind, garlands wavering about, lucky little boys sitting up high lowering cloth carry bags on strings for people to send up coconuts and flowers, the Brahmin priests looking down impassively.




It’s the Brahmins particularly – the extravagant courtly costumes, the imperious faces staring down – that convey the true sense of the gods as majesties: as the most important personages in our world, out on a tour of the town, to be saluted by their adoring subjects. And a very large number of their adoring subjects are sweating, straining at the edge in the effort required to pull them. The Big Car teeters its way uphill until the momentum runs out. The chocks are wedged in again. Everyone breathes.




It will take about ten hours to circumnavigate the temple.”

22 November 2007

Ready to Pull

Its beginning to get interesting. Crowds are building up, and there is excitement in the air.

Ladies will be pulling the chains at the left and gents on the right. Already folk are deciding what part of the chain they have decided to reserve. These ladies definitely are marking out their spots.


There is a certain milling around, and people making decisions as to the best place to go.


Dotted around the 5 Chariots currently parked on Car Street, are vendors selling various puja paraphernalia.


Pilgrims are performing puja at their Chariot pulling station.



Its nearly time.



God Darshan

Before the Big Chariot is hauled on its circuit around the outside perimeter of the 26 acre Arunachaleswarar Temple, pilgrims are allowed up into the Chariot to take darshan of the God, Arunachaleswarar and his Goddess, Unnamulaiyaal. Lucky I have arrived early and the streets are comparatively empty. This is just the beginning of how crowded it will get.


To the left is a building through which pilgrims go in order to climb onto the Chariot.


In the next photograph going through the tunnel onto the bridge from the building onto the Chariot.


A nice welcoming face as I wait to climb onto the chariot.



Looking down onto Car Street while in the waiting area before climbing onto the Chariot. The chariot behind is that of Lord Murugan - also preparing to be taken around the Temple perimeter.



In the next photograph you can see folk crossing the bridge onto the Chariot.



And to get an idea of the gigantic size of the wooden chariot, in the next photograph you can see the backs of pilgrims who are taking darshan of the Gods, Arunachaleswarar and Unnamulaiyaal.



And now its my turn to take the darshan, and happily I am given permission to take a photograph of the Gods.



And in close-up.




People in Town

By now its around 10 a.m. on Maha Radham day and the Vinayaka Chariot is still going around the perimeter roads surrounding the 26 acre Arunachaleswarar Temple. As the Chariot is being pulled along by devotees tugging on chains, it should take quite a few hours. The crowds gradually begin to build up as the morning progresses. So I go wandering the streets checking out whats happening.

Here is a man selling Chakra Valli Kilanku, which is a root vegetable reputed to be very effective in cooling body heat and also relieving and helping with all kinds of gastric and digestive problems. It tastes rather like sweet cucumber, and interestingly it tastes very cool - like it has just come out of the fridge.

Below a stall selling all kinds of sweets, candies, laddus and eatables.

Young lads roaming around selling toys, horns and flutes.



Everywhere you go, there are flowers. Most of which have come from local farmers who have brought in their blooms early in the morning.



Some balloons with lots of free advertising for Companies we all recognise.



A mountain of delicious, fresh, puri, a nice tasty roasted rice. The Indian version of snacking on popcorn - but in this case we have a rice eatable and a nice big mountain of it to get through!



Feeling a little hungry so stopped by Hotel Deepam on Car Street for a couple of Dosai Roasts. In front of the restaurant is a small store selling cigarettes, newspapers, sweets etc., which a young lad was tending on behalf of his Dad. Many of the children have up to 10 days holidays because of the Deepam Festivals.




Vinayaka Chariot


These photographs are from Wednesday the 21st November; the day of Maha Radham, the biggest and grandest procession of Deepam Festival. I was very eager to attend so decided to turn up early. Walking towards Arunachaleswarar Temple around 9 a.m. I met up with the oncoming Vinayaka chariot which was preceded by Rukku the Temple Elephant. On this day a total of five chariots will go around the perimeter roads of the Temple; Vinayaka, Lord Murugan, Parashakti, Chandikeswarar and finally on the giant chariot, Arunachaleswarar (Shiva) with Unnamulaiyaal (Parvati).

Rukku is very nicely dressed for the day wearing her cover of the Goddess Meenakshi.


In the below photograph the ladies are tugging on a huge linked chain that is pulling along the chariot.



Whenever the chariot gets stuck the men insert large wooden clogs under the wheels.


Which they jump upon to move along the chariot. Once the chariot is moving again, the clog lever is removed until the next jam-up.