Pongal and Thaipusam

Pongal and Thaipusam 

In late January I got the opportunity to celebrate two South Indian holidays with my exchange friend Carlo’s host family. Pongal is a harvest festival dedicated to the sun that lasts about three days. However, Harnoor, Alberto, Carlo, and I only celebrated one of the days with his family. It started in the evening after Harnoor and I had our Bahasa Melayu class. We went to the market and got a couple of supplies and then came back and made these palm leaf decorations that we hung up in front of the house. After, Alberto and I tried our hand at making a traditional design made with a flour and water mixture. To make the designs, you have to first soak a piece of cloth in the mixture and then put the cloth in your palm between all of your fingers besides your index finger and your thumb. Your index finger is supposed to be your makeshift paintbrush that the mixture drips down while you draw. When you need more ‘paint’ you push your thumb into the cloth. Needless to say, Alberto and I were not experts. At first, we were dripping everywhere and had to clean up a lot of the drawings we attempted. However, I am proud to say that we were not terrible by the end of the night! I really enjoyed this activity. While I do not call myself artsy, that is my cousin Aneesa, I do enjoy doodling. Anyone can tell you, back in North Carolina my notes would be filled with small doodles all over my paper and I am constantly drawing while on the phone at home. Not to say the doodles are good, but I like being able to make small scribbles while I am listening to things, oddly enough it makes me concentrate more. The flour mixture drawings were very similar, just a lot messier. The next morning, we all woke up very early and did a few ceremonies to celebrate, and then we spent the day playing hand ball. I really enjoyed getting to experience a tradition that I was not used to, and I had a lot of fun hanging out with my Johor cohort. 

A couple of days later, we all headed to Kuala Lumpur at 9 pm to celebrate Thaipusam. Thaipusam is an Indian holiday mainly celebrated by southern Indians. It is always celebrated during the full moon. Batu Caves is one of the best places to celebrate the festival since it has the tallest statue of Lord Murugan (140 feet tall!) and over one million people come yearly. The belief if that during Thaipusam, Lord Murugan showered with devotion for prayers for prayers answered. Thaipusam was the holiday that I was looking most forward to celebrating in Malaysia due to the processions up to Batu Caves done every year that are like no other. I also thought it was an interesting holiday that surrounded prayers being answered as well as new vows being made for the year to come. In a way, the concept reminded me of the thoughts surrounding Thanksgiving. However, instead of a dinner, the most serious participants of Thaipusam make the trek to the top of Batu Caves pierced with hooks and held back by others as they attempt to make it to the top. 

We arrived in KL around one am and had to park far away due to all of the crowds. Two of my friends had been there since eight that night and three of my other friends would not arrive until around three or four am. The place was so crowded that I did not end up seeing these friends until around half past five that morning, and only for ten minutes or so. When Harnoor, Alberto, Carlo, Carlo’s host family, and I got to the main area, we first decided to go down to the river where people were being pierced and preparing for their walks. There are three main types of worshipers at Thaipusam. First, there are the people dressed in yellow who carry pots of milk up to the caves to pour on  a statue of Lord Murugan, the Hindu god of war. This group has the majority of the participants. Second, there are volunteers who carry artistic shrines called kavadis. Finally, there is the group that pierce themselves all over. These hooks are attacked to rope, which another person holds onto and kind of holds the hooked person back a little bit. This last group goes into a trance like state as they walk up to the cave. We saw this first hand while trying to go up to the temple ourselves when a man in a trance was trying to pass us and could not even use words, instead he made some quick gestures and his eyes looked wild. After we watched people be pierced, we headed up to the caves ourselves. There were so many people that the climb, which usually takes about ten minutes when visiting on a normal day, took us about two hours. I thought that we could not get closer together when we finally arrived arrived to the main temple and that it might be impossible to make any sort of space. This thought was quickly gone when Alberto, who was not feeling good, threw up. Despite being smushed together like sardines, people around him quickly made a five foot in diameter circle around him and the throw up. Unfortunately, one woman did not move in time and got vomit on her bare feet. She squealed accordingly. In the moment, no one found it funny at all and I remember trying to get out as fast as possible, which is slightly impossible in that crowd. But, at the end we were laughing at how fast these people seemed to make space that was seemingly not there a second before. If you ever need a bit of space during Thaipusam, I recommend vomiting, Alberto had great results. By seven am we were exhausted, and headed home, arriving around four pm after a stop in the historical town Melaka. I still do not know how I managed to wake up for school the next morning. 

I am so sorry these posts are so late! I have been very busy recently, but I wanted to emphasis how grateful I am that I had Carlo’s host family that welcomed us all into their home to celebrate these two holidays. Being half-Indian, I am always interested in learning more about that half of my ethnicity and getting to participate in these two rituals that I do not think I would be able to in any other situation was amazing.