Hooked on Thaipusam!
19-21 January
Pulau Penang, Malaysia 

As luck would have it we happened to be in Penang for this festival…

Thaipusam wins hands down as the most fascinating, spectacular and colourful Hindu festival we’ve ever seen. Devotees perform amazing acts of physical resilience by skewering their bodies with an obscene amount of body piercings. Since we were not very likely to ever see this again, we traded a couple of hours of extra sleep for wanting to be right in the thick of things before sunrise…

Thaipusam is a Hindu festival celebrated mostly by the Tamil community when the Pusam Constellation is in its ascendancy, in the 10th month of the Hindu calendar (Thai) – it’s usually towards the end of January or the beginning of February. The festival commemorates the occasion when Parvati gave Murugan a vel (spear) so he could vanquish the evil demon Soorapadman. Murugan is the youngest son of Shiva and his wife Parvati.

Westerners often have trouble understanding Hinduism principally because of its vast pantheon of Gods. The one omnipresent God usually has three physical representations: Brahma, the creator; Vishnu, the preserver; and Shiva, the destroyer or reproducer. All three gods are shown with four arms, but Brahma has the added advantage of four heads to represent his all-seeing presence.
The festival emphasizes debt bondage. The Kavadi (burden) itself is a physical burden through which the devotees implore for help from the God Murugan. Generally, Hindus take a vow to offer a kavadi to the idol for the purpose of tiding over or averting a great calamity. For instance, if the devotee's son is laid up with a fatal disease, he would pray to Shanmuga to grant the boy a lease of life in return for which the devotee would take a vow to dedicate a kavadi to Him.
Devotees prepare for the celebration by cleansing themselves through prayer and fasting for approximately 48 days before Thaipusam. Kavadi bearers have to perform elaborate ceremonies at the time of assuming the kavadi and at the time of offering it to Murugan. The kavadi bearer observes celibacy and take only pure, Satvik food (food that is simple and easily digestible according to the Ayurvedics), once a day, while continuously thinking of God.
There are however many Chinese, Sikh and the odd European who also participate in this act of faith which leaves many devotees and observers alike, spiritually transformed.
On the day of the festival, devotees will shave their heads and undertake a pilgrimage along a set route while engaging in various acts of devotion, notably carrying various types of kavadi. At its simplest this may entail carrying a pot of milk, but mortification of the flesh by piercing the skin, tongue or cheeks with vel skewers is also common.
The simplest kavadi is a semicircular decorated canopy supported by a wooden rod that is carried on the shoulders, to the temple. In addition, some have a small spear through their tongue, or a spear through the cheeks. The spear pierced through his tongue or cheeks reminds him constantly of Lord Murugan. It also prevents him from speaking and gives great power of endurance. Other types of kavadi involve hooks stuck into the back and either pulled by another walking behind or being hung from a decorated bullock cart or more recently a tractor, with the point of incisions of the hooks varying the level of pain. The greater the pain the more god-earned merit.
A pilgrimage procession takes place on the first day to bring the statue of Lord Muruga (who represents virtue, youth and power) on a silver chariot led by more then 60 devotees adorned with peacock feathers, from Little India to the Nattukotai Chettiar Temple to the Waterfall Hilltop Temple at the end of Waterfall Road, near to the Botanic Gardens, Penang.

19th January
At 6:30am the streets were already packed with people, and the Indian ladies were dressed in their finest and looked absolutely beautiful. The silver chariot, pulled by two bulls stopped for about 20 minutes every 100 meters – they’d eventually reach their destination by midnight. The air was electric and everybody was anxious to get their offerings to the chariot. Cranking up the volume in Little India is the norm, and you could hear the female singer from afar as the chariot approached, coupled with the rhythmic drumbeat of four guys carrying drums, wisps of incense wafting past our nostrils… it was such an amazingly heady mix and just got right under your skin!

As the chariot approached, coconuts forming pyramids on the sidewalks were then individually hurled to the ground with great force to split them open – this was a sign of good luck, thanksgiving and an act of repelling sins. Waiting patiently on the sidelines, were the drivers on two little bobcat steer loaders who would, very skilfully and with such speed, clear the debris to the side of the road before a handful of municipal council workers plunged into disciplined action.

When the chariot stopped, a family member bearing offerings of fruit, betel leaves, and a beautiful jasmine garland arranged on small platters, worked their way through the crowds to the chariot to receive a blessing by the priest. The garland was then taken and placed with hundreds of others on the idol. The grey ash fingerprint between the eyebrows signified a blessing. Apparently it’s good luck if you manage to touch the chariot…

It is interesting to note that the yearly chariot procession during Thaipusam has been held without fail since 1857. A wooden chariot was used for the first 37 years until the silver chariot was brought from India in 1894; this chariot has been used ever since.

Further on we saw a dance performed by a group of men, the kavadis, carrying heavy wooden frames adorned with peacock feathers on their shoulders. The dance is performed during the ceremonial worship of Lord Murungan, the Tamil God of War.

We followed the procession for about 2 hours and then needed breakfast and a coffee! The following days’ proceedings were going to be way more fascinating….

20th January

Up bright and early, 3 of us headed over by bus to Lorong Kulit (a street just off Jalan Utama, very near to the City Stadium). This is the “Kavadi Venue”. We didn’t want to miss out on anything and so our 6:30am arrival was perfect. Here everyone gets ready and in the right “spiritual place” to be skewered.

Shortly after arriving, we witnessed one of the fathers of the devotees go into a “spiritually possessed” kind of state and had to be forcibly restrained by 2 others before blessing his son. It was all very ethereal as this took place whilst the sun was rising.

The kavadi carriers are truly the greatest spectacle of the entire Thaipusam celebration – here seemingly masochistic acts as fulfilment for answered prayers. They go through the physical endurance of being skewered and pierced on the back and front of their bodies, including their faces, by hooks of varying thicknesses. As an act of penance, some carry offerings of milk, and adorn their bodies with hundreds of miniature milk pots (paal kadum) connected to the skin by very fine hooks. Some have “reigns” attached to huge hooks (like butchers hooks) in their backs and then literally pull their “driver” along!

Even more striking are the vel kavadi, huge cages of spikes that pierce the skin of the carrier. These cages are often decorated with peacock feathers, flowers and pictures of deities. Some go as far as piercing their tongues and cheeks with tridents and skewers. Couples whose prayers for children have been answered carry their babies on their shoulders in saffron cradles made of sugar cane stalks.

A family have perhaps 3 or 4 drummers, and once you hear the rhythmic dum-dum-dum you know it’s just a matter of minutes before another devotee is skewered. While it looks excruciating, a trance-like state stops devotees from feeling pain (judging by the look on some of their faces whilst being skewered we think just a slight discomfort is felt, but that could have been misinterpreted). Later the wounds are treated with lemon juice and holy ash to prevent scarring. Like firewalking, only the truly faithful should attempt it. It is said that insufficiently prepared devotees keep doctors busy over this festival period with skin lacerations, or by collapsing after the strenuous activities. The devotees say it is faith and belief in Lord Murugan that prevents the pain and the bleeding.

At times I felt it was such a personal thing (being skewered), and that I was being disrespectful by trying to get in close to get a great photo, yet on the other hand I felt quite lucky to witness such a personal experience for the families concerned… but not fully comprehending the process in its entirety it’s very difficult to know what I should have been feeling - essentially the families are very proud and clearly it’s a very “public” affair.

Being there so early and watching the sun shed more light on the ever unfolding events was a great boon as it was still cool and we could proceed up Utama Road with the greatest of ease – and accompanied by devotees clad in yellow and saffron, clean-shaven heads (symbol of humility and atonement) smeared with sandalwood paste, walked along the road without the boisterousness that would dominate the later hours of the day. We knew that in 4 or 5 hours it would be standing room only as they expected crowds of four to six hundred thousand people!!

In celebration hundreds of beautifully decorated make-shift stalls were erected along the roadside where charitable Chinese and Indian families gave out bottled water, juice, fruits, sweet, buns, and prepared sweet and sour rice to devotees. Thunderous loud music, dancing, the beating of drums, and the singing of devotional songs by the devotees supporters could be seen and heard for miles throughout the entire vicinity of the festival.

Upon reaching the temple, devotees will fulfil their vows, offer thanksgiving prayers and penance to Lord Murugan. The chariot is then scheduled for a return trip to start from the temple at midnight, reaching Kovil Veedu before dawn the following day.

On our walk back down from the temple to Kavadi venue we passed the devotees we’d seen being skewered at dawn! We boarded a bus bound for the jetty and sat in silence savouring the very unusual festival we’d just witnessed that was so rich in culture and deep in tradition. Perhaps that’s what keeps these countries and communities “together”… the respect for the various cultures and the richness of tradition. It’s food for thought indeed.