Another year, another Kumbha Bharani at Chettikulangara

In 2007, around this time of the year, I had written a detailed blog-post about the annual
Kumbha Bharani function that happens at the Chettikulangara Devi Kshetram (temple)
near my home in Kerala. The link to that article is
http://indiandream.blogspot.com/2007_03_01_archive.html

Since every year the rituals are the same, no point in repeating the whole thing. The above
link gives a detailed view into what this is all about. The date for the function is based on the
Malayalam calendar and varies from year to year. This year the function falls on 2-Mar-09
ie. today. Will just repost one of the pictures here.

Yesterday, when I was at Kerala, they were decorating the deity that belongs to our area,

which is Bheem/Bhim/Bheeman, who is one of the 5 famed Pandava brothers in the Hindu

epic Mahabharata.

In Feb 2008, my son was too small to understand or make any sense of this function. But at

17 months today, he is pretty observant and curious. So, I thought it made sense for me to

take him and give him a dekko at a diety who comes out only once a year for 1 week, of which

6 days are spent in getting him ready, while the actual function is only for 1 day. The rest of

the year, he lies in a small 1-room home located on a plot measuring 2-cents (100 cents make

an acre) that shares its boundary wall with my home.

So, yesterday afternoon I take him to the place where Bhiman is being readied for his big day.

This is like 200 metres from my home and I walk down carrying my son. It is too hot & humid

to make him walk and anyway, he is not old enough to walk that far at one stretch. We see the

experts layering the wooden torso of Bhiman with lots of clothes to give it a human-esque

shape. And ofcourse there are lots of curious bystanders.

From the big fingers of Bhima's hands are hanging whole sheafs of plantains which have been

offered as offerings by devotees. These would be auctioned off after the whole function is

over and the proceeds go to the temple. My son is all eyes as he takes in the spectacle of a

big man sitting on a kind of chariot, with a well made-up face. I take him around so that he

gets a detailed view and then we walk back home.

As I open the gate to our home, I can hear him sleeping - must have got exhausted by the

heat and humidity. I tuck him into bed for his usual afternoon nap.