Thaipusum festival is the largest and most significant Hindu public display not only in Southern India but in Malaysia and Singapore where the Tamil diaspora has settled in years.
The celebration is all about faith, endurance and penance. The word Thaipusam is a combination of the Tamil month, “Thai” and the name of a star, “Pusam”. This particular star is at its highest point during the festival. This festival is celebrated as a sign of appreciation to Lord Murugan or Lord Kartikeye. Every year, millions of people gather at various temples to celebrate Thaipusam in a grand scale.
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The festivities: The Thaipusam ceremony starts in the early hours of the morning. The devotees dress in bright orange and yellow — Lord Murugan’s favorite colors — while they chant and walk to the temple.
Some devotees only carry milk pots and wooden or semi-circular steel kavadis . Some pierce their faces with metal spikes and have hooks inserted into their bodies and some pierce their tongues with skewers and carry a wooden kavadi decorated with flowers and peacock feathers balanced on their shoulders.
Other devotees carry spiked kavadis that require elaborate preparation. ’Kavadi’ literally means ‘sacrifice at every step’ in Tamil. Women devotees simply carry a pot of milk, an offering which symbolises abundance and fertility to the Hindus.
At the most famous event in Kuala Lumpur , beating drums accompany hundreds of thousands of Hindu worshippers when they make their way toward the entrance of the Batu Caves just north of Kuala Lumpur, before they climb the 272 steps to the temples inside one cave.
In Singapore, the ceremony starts in the early morning. Devotees leave Sri Perumal Temple along Serangoon Road in Little India then make their way down to Sri Thendayuthapani Temple, forming an unbroken procession of spikes, hooks and milk pots, often singing and dancing.
Thaipusam involves physical and mental discipline as the devotees purify the body through rigid fasting with simple vegetarian meals and observe celibacy. Thaipusam is celebrated faithfully with pilgrimage that gives devotees great powers of endurance to fulfill their vows. While Thaipusum is only one day each year but the devotees begin to fast and cleanse several days before the festival and the celebration can also go on for several days.
By- Monica Saxena
