The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : A village fair in the heart of city

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Thursday, May 15, 2008
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A village fair in the heart of city

Swathi Shivanand

The three-day Gangammana Jatre provides a glimpse into the 80-year-old tradition

The karaga is filled with water drawn from 11 wells
Over 1.5 lakh devotees turned up to pray on the second day of Gangamma fair

— Photo: Bhagya Prakash K.

THE TRADITION CONTINUES: Devotees praying at Gangammana jatre at Kodandarampura in Malleswaram in Bangalore on Wednesday.

BANGALORE: For three days in a year, an innocuous looking street at Kodandaramapura in Malleswaram dons a festive gear to celebrate its village festival.

The area might have grown by leaps and bounds and transformed into an urban agglomeration, but every year it is time for the “villagers” to worship their deity and seek her blessings for a healthy year.

On Wednesday, the last day of the 80th edition of the Gangammana Jatre, 2nd Cross, Malleswaram Swimming Pool Extension, was teeming with people and displays one would now find only in rural fairs.

Makeshift carousels dot the street even as robots with forecasting powers and folk dolls dispensing unusually shaped sweets vied for attention.

Women dressed in yellow saris and carrying kalasha stood in long queues waiting to worship the deity for the long lives of their husbands.

Culminating in a karaga, similar to the one performed in central parts of the city, the jatre starts off with offerings of milk to the goddess. The second day sees maidens throng her praying for “good husbands”.

The deity is taken to the nearby Sankey Tank where she is given a bath, symbolic of investing her with life. The “Huvina Ooru Karaga” is taken out where the deity visits houses in the area around her temple.

The third and final day, another procession with the karaga, is taken out as she visits the eight temples in her vicinity.

Letting me in on a secret, K. Natarajan, descendant of Chengalvaraya Nayakar and Kaniyappa Nayakar (the people with whom the jatre started), says: “The karaga is filled with water from 11 wells in the village. As per tradition, the water is brought by the dhobis (washermen) in the area.

“After that, the flower arrangement is made and it is carried only by a member of the Nayakar family.”

Mr. Natarajan, who has been carrying the karaga for 39 years, has handed over the responsibility to his son Sudhakar.

“I wanted to do this so that my son could learn of his responsibilities when I am alive and not be left in the lurch in case of an unforeseen event,” he says. Ask him what motivated him to carry on the jatre for long, Mr. Natarajan is business-like.

“I have prospered because of Gangamma. She is like my silent partner. Every year, I merely give back to her what is her due,” he says.

Of his ancestors from whom he inherited the responsibilities, he says: “They were the land-owning and justice-dispensing Patels of the village. We owned hectares of farmland at what is now Palace Orchards. In the initial years of the fair, worshipping the village deity was a limited community affair. But now the popularity has grown so much that over 1.5 lakh people came to offer their prayers to Gangamma yesterday,” says Mr. Natarajan.

The burgeoning numbers are not the only change that the jatre has seen.

From a simple daylong affair, it has expanded to three days.

The deity has transformed from her ferocious looking avatar (still seen in deities in villages) into a picture of bright calmness.

For the cosmopolitan urbanite, from being merely a village gathering, the jatre has become an event that provides insights to a Bangalore that once was.

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