Thaipusam

  kavadi2 
  Originally uploaded by budak.

After swinging by Beach Road yesterday to stock up on barang-barang to keep my non-aquatic duck high and dry while islandhopping, I had planned to drop by the [email protected] to check out the bookish babes there do some research.

Unfortunately, after passing the Y.M.C.A. and despite a growing predilection towards slumber, a sudden and irresistible force flung me off the bus and onto the road, where my duck jostled with a swelling tide of walkers accompanying the kavadi procession that marks the Thaipusam festival. 

Thaipusam honours the Hindu deity Murugan, the youngest son of the Lord Shiva. The name of the festival has nothing to do with unsporting soccer teams and dethroned leaders with a taste for bak kut teh; rather, the celebrations take place on the lunar zenith of the Tamil month of Thai (which straddles January and February) when the star Pusam is at its highest. Considering the incredible amount of effort and spectacle that goes into the festival, I am sort of incensed that Thaipusam isn’t a public holiday at all!

I am sure a good number of other rituals and rites are performed within the grounds of participating temples, but for the rest of us, the highlight of the day is probably the languorous procession of kavadi-bearers and their boisterous entourage. In the late afternoon, they emerge from the Sri Srinivasa Perumal Temple at Serangoon Road on a march to the Sri Thendayuthapani Temple at Tank Road off Clemenceau Avenue, cheered on by family, friends and the burden of penitent devotion. Gawking tourists take in the scene with handycams while garrulous ducks squawk out perfunctory apologies at elbowed sidewalkers.

The epic legends behind Thaipusam’s origins are probably too long and complex for my duck’s slice salami-long concentration span. All I know is that the practice of carrying kavadis stem from a symbolic recapitulation of burdens that Idumban, an acolyte of Murugan, bore as a test of his spiritual worthiness. Another version puts it that the event marks the defeat of the demon Tharakasuran by Murugan with the aid of a Vel (a pointy javelin) given by his mother Parvati. The kavadis, mobile altars ferried on the flesh of mortal men, maintain the sharp pointy theme, being adorned from inside out with sharp vels that threaten to skewer ducks that get too close. The de rigueur piercing of the kavadi carrier by a girdle of vels, chained hooks and other mortificatory implements, often in ways that render my duck soft in the legs, is associated with the trance-like states that devotees enter during the procession, during which they are rendered impervious to pain and hopefully, the pestilent flashing of shutterducks. 

Early kavadis are said to be akin to the getup of itinerant hawkers, resembling a stick with baskets or milk pots at each end slung across the shoulder. Latter-day designs are far more elaborate, having metamorphosized into mountains of metal with peacock tail feathers aplenty (the peafowl is Murugan's preferred steed) and bedecked with garlands, silvery baubles, bells and whistles. Hooked lemons or limes also dangle from the bodies of individual devotees.

Members of the local Indian community were out in full force, many dressed in their finest and most flamboyant. Some friends would be interested to know as well that there were some really gorgeous ladies by the wayside, with liquid eyes and cheekbones that could cut through sliced duck like the savage sabre of Tippu Sultan. I read that in India, Thaipusam is a big deal only in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, where an ocean of kavadis greet the high moon. A good number of guest workers from the subcontinent were also present, but my feeling was that they seemed to be taking it in more as curious onlookers, watching quietly in close-knit groups with the periodic beer in hand.

Barechested and trousered in saffron, the kavadi carriers maintain a silent ecstasy throughout (I wouldn’t want to speak either if a spike is poking through my tongue), their nonchalance more than made up for by accompanying carousels of young men. Every 20 yards or so, the carrier takes a breather from walking by vigorously shaking his booty and twirling around in a fit of fervour. His friends will drum-up a simultaneous session of cheering, shouting and general cacophony sufficient to drive away any demon duck. Their high spirits, however, failed to flighten my excitabled duck off until about half-past-eight, when the competing ghost of hunger pangs finally drove me away for the night.

More photos at my Flickr set. And here's some further ducky tales from Down Under as well as a duck dat came back from the dead!!

Comments

[Walter]

Fascinating account of one of the most intriguing cultural festivals here in uniquely Singapore. I caught a little bit of it yesterday too, somewhere along Tank Road near the Hindu temple. It is heartening to know that some traditions and cultures are still being kept and can withstand the onslaught of globalisation and modernisation.