{"id":38956,"date":"2015-01-02T15:57:05","date_gmt":"2015-01-02T10:27:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/?p=38956"},"modified":"2015-01-13T14:34:16","modified_gmt":"2015-01-13T09:04:16","slug":"attukal-pongala-festival-kerala","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/society\/attukal-pongala-festival-kerala","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating Attukal Pongala Festival in Kerala"},"content":{"rendered":"

The world’s only largest\u00a0annual congregation festival of women \u00a0is called “Attukal Pongala”. During my visit to Kerala’s capital , I was keen on experiencing this festival, as I had learnt about it from the Guinness Book of Records back in 2009 . More than\u00a03.9 million women<\/strong>\u00a0come together every year for this religious act where \u00a0they \u00a0offer their devotion , dedication &\u00a0\u00a0obeisance to the deity of Attukal Bhagavathy temple.<\/p>\n

\"Women<\/a>
Women gathered for the festival<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The\u00a0 festival is about offering a sweet dish called \u201c Pongala\u201d, which literally means \u201cto boil over\u201d, porridge made of rice , sweet brown molasses, coconut , jagerry, nuts , raisins. etc. This is offered to the deity residing in one of the most religious ancient temples,\u00a0 Attukal Devi (Attukal Bhagavathy) – small temple\u00a0 situated two kilometres away from \u00a0Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Thiruvananthapuram City.<\/p>\n

You can visit this festival between February and March as it commences on Karthika star of the Malayalam month. The coming year it would be celebrated on 5th<\/sup> March\u00a0 as calculated by local authorities but can change\u00a0 according to the customs and\u00a0 rituals of the temple.<\/p>\n

\"Area<\/a>
Area filled with smoke<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The history of this festival is about a century old , when Kannagi, popularly known as Kannaki , the\u00a0 famous heroine of Chipathikaram, met the head of Mulluveettil family and asked to help her cross the Killi river. He was performing his rituals and offerings to Killi \u00a0river at that time , and decided to help \u00a0her\u00a0 to cross the\u00a0 river. She was also welcomed by the whole family after crossing the\u00a0 river, but she disappeared while the household members were amidst\u00a0 preparations for a warm welcome\u00a0 to the vanished girl. That night Karanavar (head of family) saw \u00a0the \u00a0same girl in his dreams , and the\u00a0 girl told him to give\u00a0 her an abode in the nearby grove where \u00a0shrubs \u00a0and \u00a0herbs grow . The old man erected the\u00a0 temple where the girl said \u00a0he\u00a0 would find three lines \u00a0marked on the \u00a0ground the very next day. The\u00a0 temple was later on called as Attukal Bhagavathy, where Goddess Attukal Devi resided in her abode.<\/p>\n

Kannaki\u00a0 is supposed to be the incarnation of Parvathy. \u00a0This story was narrated to me as early as 6 am in the morning while I was on my way to experience the religious zeal of the devotees for the deity. Many devotees also had the photos of the Goddess since the\u00a0 temple premises cannot take even more than 100 devotees.The picture of the goddess had a varied mix of colours, like pink & gold\u00a0 and she was portrayed carrying a spear, sword, skull and\u00a0 shield in her four hands, symbolising destruction. There was also a picture of Mahishasuramardini right below her feet , and various offerings for the Devi covered the photograph.<\/p>\n

\"Women<\/a>
Women devotees around the sacred area to perform their rituals<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While I chatted with some of the ladies who could speak English apart from\u00a0Malayalam, they said \u201cAttukal temple\u201d was devoted to Kannaki, the heroine of the Tamil epic Chilappadikaram by Ilangovadikal. Folktale says \u00a0that after the destruction of Madurai town, Kannaki travelled to Kodungallur in Kerala. It is believed that she stayed at Attukal on the way and local women offered her pongala.That is why thousands of women devotees from far flung areas flock to the temple with invocations to the supreme power to nurse the kids just like\u00a0 Devi does for her devotees.<\/p>\n

The euphoria of religion, faith and belief is observable not only among the devotees but also among the locals as they support the devotees irrespective of caste, creed and religion by helping them to setup their area while performing the ritual.The locals even help them stay in their houses for a ten-day programme to play a role in this festival. The ritual is performed on the streets where some of them \u00a0book their spot of around 15 inches, days in advance while these women devotees assemble together from different parts of Kerala and outside. That is why I was told that this place is called Sabrimala of women. Pot sellers, women hawkers carrying baskets sell various things before the rituals starts to make that extra buck during the festival.<\/p>\n

\"Woman<\/a>
Women sellers stroll to sell items to the needy devotees<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The bricks are installed by the devotees in their areas, spots are marked with chalks by their family members . Women of all ages dressed in off-white , some in bleach white saris , with golden border or brown borders which is the traditional attire , sit across the marked spot to perform the rituals. Some of the members of younger generation or creative devotees hand paint the saris with peacocks and artistic designs to bring innovation to the tradition.<\/p>\n

\"Traditional<\/a>
Traditional saris designed with new prints<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Some of the devotees along with earthen mud\u2013brown pots also bring colourful pots to differentiate from the other goddess aficionados. Raw wood is used to light fire to make the Pongala which starts together around 10 am. Pongala is experienced as ane inner chemistry of the body, mind and soul; recharging the devotees with sublime happiness and make them spiritually and mentally equipped to face the challenges of the future. The entire area with open fields, entrance of the shops, government establishments, premises of houses, etc are filled with smoke as soon as the fire is strong enough to cook the pongala in the earthen pots. The loudspeaker starts blaring devotional songs from days in advance for this celebration and each local authority, committees, residents of the area sweep the area clean to decorate it.<\/p>\n

I even got to\u00a0 see various decoration of flowers made from palm leaves and flower decorations with their stem bearing new rice, amongst other things. As part of the tradition, Pongala is prepared with different kinds of gruel mixed with jaggery & coconut either in a thick liquid format or ladoos<\/em>. After it is prepared , the devotees offer it to the goddess and then share it with family members and neighbours and visitors who come from all parts of the world to observe this festival.<\/p>\n

\"Designed<\/a>
Designed earthen pot made colorful to stand out<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Traditional<\/a>
Traditional setup to lit the earthen pot to cook Pongala<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Making<\/a>
Making ladoos from Pongala<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Pongala<\/a>
Pongala served in other form with leaf<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The only men you would see around this festival are the local policemen who stroll around with blood colour bikes to check on the health and security of the festival participants. The local and government bodies offer dedicated health care services during the festival as devotees might get heat stroke while performing the ritual in scorching heat. My memory of this festival was very smoky and sugary from the offerings which I had.<\/p>\n

\"Policemen<\/a>
Policemen bikes patrolling the festival area<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The world’s only largest\u00a0annual congregation festival of women \u00a0is called “Attukal Pongala”. During my visit to Kerala’s capital , I was keen on experiencing this festival, as I had learnt about it from the Guinness Book of Records back in 2009 . More than\u00a03.9 million women\u00a0come together every year for this religious act where \u00a0they […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1335,"featured_media":39628,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[4146],"class_list":{"0":"post-38956","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-society","8":"tag-festival"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1335"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38956"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39651,"href":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38956\/revisions\/39651"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mapsofindia.com\/my-india\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}