Feast for Thought

The number of elephants that take part in a temple festival depends on that temple's resources and means. Thus while the Trissur Pooram draws nearly 40 elephants over a period of three days, Annanad's small Veluppilly temple has this year been able to afford seven elephants, real progress from the 5 seen last year.. The elephants travel from their homes on foot or by truck. Each elephant has a distinct identity: Mangalaamkunnu Ayyappan Ithithaanam Guruvayoorappan Thiruvaanikkaavu Raajagopaal Kiran Naaraayanankutty Unnippilly Kaalidasan Madhurappuram Kannan Pallathaamkulangara Gireesan Of late, the elephants wear their names proudly around their neck (I can now identify Gireesan, once I see the nameplate when I chance upon him at another temple :) ). The pachyderms are dear in so many ways...their seemingly infinite patience, their majestic sounding names, their trained kneel-down obeisance to the diety... The noble giants look extra-royal when they are readied for the ceremon...

Annanad (please zoom out on the map to the right to see the location) is a village 2 km west from NH-47 (Salem-Kanyakumari National Highway) at Muringoor, south of Chalakudy in central Kerala. Sri Dharmasastha is the diety at the Veluppilly temple , and as with every Kerala temple, here too an annual temple festival is celebrated with traditional fervour. This year, the D-day falls on 23 Feb - the day of 'Uthram' star of the Kumbham lunar month (Feb-Mar). As I look forward to attending the festival after a very long wait, I hear a nostalgic localite trying to put into words childhood impressions of his village's grand day. "A micro-miniature version of the Trissur Pooram festival", he tries to explain. "Those days (in the 70's and 80's), there were huge trees in the space in front of the temple, including a (jokingly christened) 'Almaa' (a banyan and a mango tree with intertwined branches), and another 'Maaplaa' (a mango tree and a j...