The Hindu : Kerala News : Hundreds witness ‘Anavalpidi’

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Kerala

Hundreds witness ‘Anavalpidi’

Staff Reporter

— PHOTO C. SURESH KUMAR.

Mammoth thrill: The ‘anavalpidi’ ritual in progress at the Umayanallur Sree Balasubramanya Swamy Temple, near Kollam, on Saturday.

KOLLAM: Watched by hundreds of devotees and admirers, including a good number of foreign tourists, the ‘Anavalpidi’ (catching the elephant’s tail) ritual was held at the Umayanallur Sree Balasubramanya Swamy Temple precincts here on Saturday morning.

The ritual is held on the sixth day of the annual festival of the temple during the Malayalam month of Meenam.

After a bath, the tusker is brought to the ‘anathottil’ of the temple. This is an occasion when the tusker is free from fetters.

After prayers by 11.45 a.m., the tusker makes obeisance to the presiding deity and races in a straight line through the temple precincts for about 50 metres.

A crowd of devotees run after it desperately attempting to catch the elephant’s tail.

As though it is aware about it, the tusker lifts its tail as high as possible at intervals. The event gives an impression that the tusker is being chased by the crowd.

Symbolic

In the process, many succeed in catching and pulling the elephant’s tail.

The ritual is a symbolic gesture of the childhood pranks between Lord Ganesha and Lord Subramanyan.

Temple committee president K. Vijayakumar said there had been no record of tusker running amok during the ritual.

The tusker that took part in this year’s ritual was Gajaraja Ratnam Thrikadavur Sivaraju.

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