Andhra Pradesh - Tirupati   

Gangamma jatara enters penultimate day

Special Correspondent

TTD offers silk vasthrams, turmeric paste, vermillion and bangles to the goddess

TIRUPATI: Fun and frolic peaked as the local folk-festival — Gangamma jatara — reached the penultimate day on Sunday.

During the weeklong festivities, devotees put on the prescribed `vesham' every day and criss-cross the streets of Tirupati offering prayers en route in the temples of different folk goddesses, as is the convention from time immemorial.

Peculiar feature

A peculiar feature of the festival is that devotees who walk along the roads to the temple putting on a range of `veshams' would be mouthing certain `obscene verses' as is the tradition and people in fact do not take affront to it but look at it as blessings from goddess Gangamma. In line with another tradition, the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) offered to the goddess the conventional `Sare' comprising a range of gift items such as a pair of silk vasthrams, turmeric paste, vermillion and bangles.

After nightlong celebrations, the festival would conclude in the wee hours of Wednesday when the priests smash the huge earthen statue of the goddess erected outside the temple at the appointed time. It would touch off a scramble among devotees for a piece of the clay, which they consider is the elixir for all their physical, mental and economic ills.

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