Chottanikkara Bhagavati Temple Festival ചോറ്റാനിക്കര ഭഗവതി ക്ഷേത്രം

India December 2024     

The host at my bed and breakfast in Fort Cohi, told me about a temple festival that was taking place that week and, with  three other residents at the BnB we decide to take a taxi there.

The street leading to the temple was busy with worshipers, shoppers, vendors and children.

 

My friends were captivated by a little day nursery in the street where the elephants were being housed.

 

Inside the temple, during the afternoon,  were dramatic reenactments of Hindu stories and scriptures. There were done in a really dramatic way with music and a singing story, bold moves and lots of audience participation 

Inside the temple was a small central temple building with a place to light candles at the front, surrounded by a  square courtyard There were towers of little oil lamps on the corners and you could also light candles that  had tapers in the wall of  the central temple 

                  

                  

                                                 

                 

            

We went on a tour of the town to see the elephants taking part in the festival before they were dressed.

They were in several compounds around the town with high security  on the gates and enormous quantities of towering leafy branches being continuously delivered for the elephants to eat. 

Apparently if  you own an elephant and something happens to it, you go straight to prison. 

There is a complicated relationship with elephants; on one hand they are seen as God's but on the other the wild ones are dangerous to crops and settlements and life. 

And here I fet a mixture of awe at the amazing size and wonder of these creatures, sadness that they were chained but also  guiltily grateful as they are so powerful. I guess none of this would be if they were in the wild but that circles back to what Lynn and I learned that it is not impossible for elephants to live alongside humans in the wild - they don't make good neighbours. 

                                                        

During the festival three elephants walk abreast around the courtyard. The music, drums ans singing is thunderous. Priests and officials and musicians follow the elephants, then worshipers. The procession starts just before sunset and goes on late into the night , it only stops to change elephants and when they are coming round you have to get out of the way, which means crowds being squishes against railings, quire the experience and not for the faint hearted!! 

Outside after dark the city was lie up with fairy lights and HEAVING with people

A quiet corner on a riverbank, on the edge of the town where we  sat during the afternoon chatting and enjoying had refreshments - fried bananas and pineapple juice  - my favourite!!