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Every year Kerala
honours the deities of Trichur by carrying them in procession on
magnificently decorated elephants.
The small Kerala town of
Trichur is physically dominated by the magnificent Vaddakunathan
temple. Dedicated to Shiva in his manifestation as the Lord of the
North, it crowns the centre of a sprawling maidan (grounds)
originally so thickly wooded that few dared venture off the beaten
track leading to the temple. People were frightened not only of the
dangerous men and wild beasts sheltering in the forest but of the
dark trees and their lurking, blood-thirsty spirits. Everything
changed in the late 18th century when, against the
wishes of religious diehards who revered the trees as the lock so of
Shiva’s hair, the dynamic ruler Shaktan Thampuran ordered them
to be felled. With the city safer and more accessible, the way was
prepared for the Trichur Pooram, to honour Trichur’s deities and
become one of India’s most spectacular festivals.
Thousands of years ago a
mighty goddess resided under a tree that still stands (it is said) in
what is now the compound of the Vaddakunathan temple. When Shiva’s
devotees decided to enlarge his small shrine into a grand temple they
moved the goddess, conceived of as his daughter, eastwards and down
a slope to a temple of her own. She is there still, the Paramekkavu
Devi. Her elder sister, the Thiruvambady Devi, resides in a temple a
few furlongs to the north, the older incumbent of a temple now
dedicated to Krishna. These sister goddesses are the main
participants of the Trichur Pooram.
The festival also honours
six other goddesses and two gods both called Ayyappa. One Ayyappa is
said to be such a chronic catarrh sufferer that he cannot tolerate
either the early morning dew or intense sunlight, making the
timings of his processions awkward.
The day before Pooram
which falls either in late April or early May sees a the arrival of
its stars: the great tusked bull elephants who will carry the
deities. They lumber into town huge yet strangely graceful. Although
the smaller temples usually send their deity with four or six
elephants, both the Paramekkavu and Thiruvambady goddesses are
accompanied by fourteen; no-one else is permitted so many. Both
temples own a few elephants and, for the Pooram, more are borrowed
from the devotees. Others must be hired and an impartial list is
compiled of the neighbourhood’s best tuskers for each temple to
select, by ballot, one list. The Pooram sets high standards and
owners consider it an honour if their elephants participate.
Every year the
Thiruvambady and Paramekkavu temples send their elephants to the
Pooram with new and costly ornaments. The broad head of each
elephant is covered with nettipattam, a large, fringed cloth
onto which are sewn around of 600 goldplated pieces of varying sizes.
Each elephant carries three Brahmins. Although one of them can sit
to support a long stemmed silken parasol, the other two must stand
precariously to wave, in time to the music, either a pair of heavy,
silver-handled yak-hair whisks or a pair of circular peacock feather
fans.
On Pooram day people are
up and about early and well before dawn temples are crowded with
devotees. Oil lamps flutter and glow and sanctums blaze with light as
priests attend to the gods and goddesses. At six o’clock in the
morning the Thiruvambady head priest comes out of the sanctum
carrying a small thidambu a symbolic image of the goddess,
which he places at the base of the great golden shield-like kolam
resting on the proud neck of a kneeling tusker. As the elephant rises
majestically to his feet, people prostrate themselves and it is
impossible to imagine that he is unaware of the divinity of his
mount.
During the next few hours
similar rituals take place in the other temples. A strict timetable
governs the movements of the various parties and dictates when they
leave their respective temple. The processions all terminating at the
Vaddakunathan temple, proceed in stage. The streets are crowded and
the elephants move at a snail’s pace. Families line the routes
to make offerings to the passing deities and throw great handfuls of
flowers up at he golden kolams.
The elephants are
preceded by the panchavadyam (five musical instruments)
players whose music is considered both divine and a must at almost
all central Kerala festivals. On Pooram day the rolling beat of
drums and accompanying horns and cymbals can be heard all over
Trihur.
One by one, according to
their timetable, the various deities arrive at the great peepul tree
outside the Vaddakunathan temple and then disperse. The exception is
the Thiruvambady party which lines up with, for the first time, 15
elephants. Their panchavadyam ends and a new set of musicians
start to play a melam in which the chief instrument is
Kerala’s fantastic drum, the chenda. More or less
simultaneously, down at the Paramekkavu temple, devotees greet the
first appearance of their goddess. She emerges mounted on a
majestic tusker and, accompanied by another fourteen, receives the
obeisances of a vast crowd. The elephants assemble outside her
temple, their might and beauty enhanced by the thundering music of
pandi-melam which, despite the hot, burning sun, is played
by drummers who pound away in, strict and energetic unison.
Eventually, and very
slowly, the paramekkavu party makes its way up and into the compound
of the Vaddakunathan temple, there to assemble before the Elanji
tree under which it is said the Paramekkavu Devi once lived. For the
next two hours men and gods are treated to a musical feast the
Elajithara melam. The Thiruvambady’s own melam ends in the late
afternoon, just after the Paramekkavu’s. The Paramekkavu party
moves out into the maidan and down to the open space road where they
turn and face the temple’s southern gateway, some 400 metres
away. The crowd by then has swelled to mammoth proportions and
humanity perches, often precariously, wherever it can find a
toehold.
As the Paramekkavu
tuskers assemble those of the Thiruvambady enter Vaddakunathan’s
western gateway, make a round of the temple and emerge, one by one,
on the southern side. The last one out is the deity-carrying
elephant, the late afternoon sun glinting on his ornaments as he
passes under the great arch. He caries his majesty lightly as he
strides into the centre of 14 waiting elephants. It is time for the
koodikazheha, the changing of the umbrellas. Both parties
have, standing behind their elephants, a forest of richly coloured,
folded umbrellas. A set is passed up to the men on the elephants and
unfurled; immediately the other side does the same. The crowd ‘ohs’
and ‘ahs’ as each silken set reveals its gleaming, swirling
colours. The end of this highly competitive display is marked by the
dying sun bathing the maidan in a magical, golden light and darkness
falls swiftly as the two parties disperse to their respective
temples.
Late at night the daytime
processions are repeated all over
Trichur panchavadyam music fills the hot night air as
elephants move regally through the still-crowded streets. Their way
is lit by huge flaming torches, giving the processions a lavish,
fairy-tale like splendour.
Suddenly the
panchavadyam stops and a great hush falls, followed by a
humming ripple of anticipation as a pink flare arches and glows its
way into the dark sky. A tongue of fire snakes an eager path down a
line of crackers and the crowd’s excited cheers are drowned in
blinding explosions. The next 15 minutes are filled with explosions
of such intensity that, for miles around, buildings shake and
tremble. This great night-time spectacle is one of India’s
greatest firework displays. Although, nowadays, the Thiruvambady and
Paramekkavu temples unite to plan and discuss the Pooram, a
traditional sense of rivalry still exists where the fireworks are
concerned, and the details of their displays are closely guarded
secrets.
The last firework fades
away as the early light of dawn creeps into the sky and fatigue that
is almost tangible replaces the acrid haze of gunpowder. Exhaustion
falls like rain onto Trichur although the Pooram is not yet over. At
eight o’clock the Thiruvambady and paramekkavu elephants
again assemble outside the Vaddakunathan temple. Three hours of
magnificent drumming follow as the chendas of both parties
play melam; the extraordinary musicians somehow summoning the
necessary stamina to play with vigour and freshness. A noisy
outburst of fireworks drowns the endings of the melam and
signals the last Pooram ritual. The two deity-carrying elephants
circle the huge lamp outside the temple and then link trunks in a
gesture of farewell. It is an intimate and touching end to the long
hours of pageantry that so fittingly honour the gods and goddesses
of Trichur.
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