Karnataka - Bangalore   

When Bangalore celebrates Draupadi’s marriage

— Photo: K. Gopinathan

Getting ready: A. Gyanendra, who will carry this year’s karaga, performing rituals at the Dharmaraya temple in Bangalore.

BANGALORE: Every year, when the clock strikes midnight on a certain day, the streets of what used to be within the Bangalore Fort reverberate with the sounds of “dik-dee dik-dee.” Bare-chested Veerakumaras beating themselves with swords — yet remaining apparently unhurt — escort the goddess on her eight km journey to the nine gates of the fort.

There she walks — the Shakti — carrying on her head a tall floral pyramid from her Dharmarayaswamy temple abode in Ulsoor Pete to others in Cubbon Park, Sampangiramanagar, Sudhamanagar, Dandupalya, Gavipura Guttahalli, K.R. Market and Majestic.

You might have lived in the city all your life and never been to this festival that is the city’s own. If you have not already caught on, we are talking about the Karaga and the goddess is Draupadi, that fascinating character from the Mahabharata.

The journey around the city is symbolic of the procession held after her marriage with the five Pandavas. “We also believe that when the goddess visits the nine doors, she banishes the evil forces trying to gain entry in form of diseases such as plague and cholera,” says T.M. Manohar, president of the Dharmarayaswamy temple

This year, the Karaga Shaktyotsava that began on April 12 will end on April 22 with the high point — the Karaga Rathotsava — on April 20.

Interestingly, the mantle of Draupadi falls on a man. In a gender-bending role that entails inter alia 11 days of asceticism, a man is chosen from the Acharya Pujari sect of the Tigala community, for “it requires the physical strength of a male to carry the karaga,” as Mr. Manohar puts it.

Like last year, 33-year-old A. Gyanendra, a carpenter, will carry the karaga, which a few years ago was borne by a chief engineer of a public utility service. “We have many IAS and KAS officers, lawyers and doctors who take part in the rituals. Some of them even draw the chariot bearing the idols of Arjuna and Draupadi,” says Chalakere Narayanaswamy, director of the trust that runs the temple.

Those who draw the chariot are from the Balijiga sect. “Nobody who is not part of our sect can pull the chariot. It is deemed by the gods that we undertake this task,” says M.P. Ramesh, one of the chariot pullers.

In a culturally fragmented, cosmopolitan city like our Bengaluru, chancing upon many communities gathering for the purpose of celebrating a faith is a rarity. So to find that apart from the Balijiga sect, there are others from the Kulagowda, Ganachari, Gante Pujari, Kolkari, Potheraju Pujari castes who take on responsibilities traditionally assigned to them comes as a welcome departure from this norm.

For over 800 years, the festival has been celebrated in the temple and never once has the goddess and chariot not left on their annual journey.

“Only in March 1947, when a curfew was imposed, the procession had to be restricted to Chickpet. But even then we celebrated it with all splendour and amidst tight security,” says Mr. Manohar.

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