Thai
Pusam is another festival in which people enjoy themselves
to the hilt in rich pageantry. Palani is one of the most
exciting pilgrim cities of India, in the immediate post-harvest
season of the ten-day Thai Pusam festival in the Periyanâyaki
Temple.
As
in other festivals, a different vâhanam is used for
each day's procession. On the seventh day, the full-moon
day marking the Thai Pusam, the deity is taken to the banks
of the Shanmuga Nadi for a bath and the temple car drawn
by thousands of devotees. There is a gaily decorated float
festival on the tenth day. The unique character of the Thai
Pusam is the astonishing parade of people bearing kavadis.
As already stated, the kavadi, associated with Idumban,
vassal of Muruga, originated in Palani.
There
are several kinds of kavadis, the milk and rosewater kavadis
being the principal ones. The central shaft of the semicircular
wooden structure is placed on the shoulders and the pilgrims
dressed in yellow costume and decorated with garlands, undergoing
many privations to fulfill vows, dance their way through
the streets and up the hillock under the hypnotic music
provided by the drum, the pipes and the tom-tom.
Taipoosam Silver Ratham
It
is a tandava as opposed to the lasya form of dance and when
performed with vigour and quick movements produces in the
spectators a feeling of exultation and a temptation to keep
step with the rhythm and dance.
Extreme
devotion prompts some kavadi dancers to disfigure their
lips. The lower lip is pierced through for the insertion
of a copper or brass ring, often with a view to maintain
strict silence. The dancers subject themselves to rigorous
austerities and try to get rid of their ego, anger, lust
and other vices. They dance to the tunes of kavadi-c-cindu,
sung by admiring groups of devotees who follow them (the
dancers). The divine songs are rendered in charming music
by a trained singer and repeated by others in chorus and
the emotion-choked dancer goes into raptures hearing them.
Sometimes they react by shifting the kavadi over their shoulder,
head, nose, etc., in seesaw position, displaying great artistry
with many a pose and movement in rhythm, unaided by hand.
The
number of kavadis reaching Palani for Thai Pusam is about
10,000. For Pankuni Uttiram, 50,000 kavadis arrive. It is
kavadi to your right, kavadi to your left, kavadi in front
of you, kavadi behind you, kavadi above you and kavadi below
you.
The
kavadis are borne by common folk as well as by millionaires
who are otherwise confined to their air-conditioned suites.
They all come walking (without footwear) in groups from
their homes at a distance of about a hundred miles while
scores and scores of empty limousines follow them. Crowds
line the entire route, cheer the kavadi bearers and offer
them tender coconut drinks in praise of their display of
courage and determination.
