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A dose of culture
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The Arubathu Moovar festival, where the 63 Saiva saint idols circumambulate the Kapaleeswarar temple, is an education in ``native'' traditions. Some sidelights...
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COME MARCH and to many of us on the inner city beat, the sight of a square made by freshly dug holes in the middle of a Mada Street, Mylapore, is an awesome portent. The next day reveals a canopy poised on poles stuck into those very holes. If you take the same route the day after, you are thrust into tumultuous temple processions. Your vehicle staggers to a halt in the milling maze round the pandal, under which the deity smiles at you benignly, ablaze in gems, silk and gold. Why not? To the Gods who live in eternity, time is of no account. However, mortal office goers avoid Mylapore when chariots, palanquins and divinities roll by in festive street rambles.
This year, my friend decided that the Arubathu Moovar festival, with its array of the 63 Saiva saint idols circumambulating the temple, could provide a dose of culture to her convent-going daughter, an education in ``native'' traditions. The child was enticed into accompanying her at peak time with promises of lavish spending on the street fair. Didn't vendors offer everything from steel rings to paper parrots (squeaking shrilly as they rode up and down the sticks to which they were attached)?
``As the crowd closed in upon us like a swelling tidal wave, I tightened my grip on the child's hand,'' my friend said. ``I knew that if I let go she would be swept away beyond recovery.'' Fortunately they were pressed close to the small Ganesha chariot where, with a pushiness she never knew she possessed, she managed to coax the priest into doling out some sacred ash. (When they got home they had to prove that they had got into the act).
A little later, seven palanquins came swimming through the human sea. ``Look, Appar! And Gnanasambandar!'' the mother shouted above the din. The child's eyes were focussed in the distance where clusters of multi-coloured kathadis (paper fans) whirred madly in the breeze. ``Amma, I want two,'' she said. ``Look, look at the saints!'' the mother screamed as they squeezed their way through the human mass. The beckoning fans zigzagged behind the swaying palanquins and lured the child into faster strides, but remained tantalisingly out of reach. By then every exit from the orbit of the gods seemed closed. It had been easier to get into the lion's mouth than out.
``I can't even begin to describe the throng,'' my friend said. Dense, vociferous groups of women in dazzling synthetic saris, paper flowers, plastic clips and powdered faces, protected by rings of their male escorts, moved in two simultaneous directions: at once cationic and anionic, centrifugal and centripetal. By then my friend was in no mood to absorb this lesson in physics. There were unexpected moments of stasis too, as large groups halted before stalls distributing drinks — from water sachets to panakam. Since it was all free, the crowd dropped all discrimination, tossing off both neer mor and rosemilk in quick succession.
Suddenly, the shuddering cry of ``Vel! Vel!'' rent the air. The teeming mass was pressed into frenetic movement, trying to create the space that wasn't there. But somehow a passage was cleared for an apparition: a human form pierced with spears all over, bearing a kavadi on top of this eerie armour. ``The man moved past us like a robot on a computer-programmed route. An old granny's complaint about her foot being stamped was lost in the devout stampede.''
With God's grace and human ingenuity, the pair finally managed to carve their way out of the bhakti-delirious parade. Fortunately, another kathadikkaran was found in a safer corner. The child got her fans, two heart shaped balloons, rings, bangles and beads, not to forget the squealing parrots. Mission Impossible ended on a happy note. ``We both got educated in more ways than I anticipated.''
GOWRI RAMNARAYAN
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