Pooram Memories

I started going for the Thrissur Pooram festival since I was about 10 or 11 years. I used to go to my cousins’ place near Thrissur a couple of days before the pooram and stay there till the Pooram was over.

For my non-Keralite friends, I would like to say that Thrissur Pooram is a temple festival in Kerala and is one of the most spectacular and colourful event in ‘God’s Own Country’.  Actually, it is much more than a temple festival. It is a social event where everyone participated irrespective of religion, caste, age or any other dividing factors.

I was permitted to go to Pooram only under strict supervision of my cousins who were elder to me by a few years. The previous day to the Pooram, my cousins would go to see the exhibition and I was allowed to tag along. They would even ask me whether I want to buy anything. I used to like a multi-coloured paper flower which can be folded. When folded it used to be an insignificant thing bordering on the ugly. It was fascinating how it transforms into a beautiful flower when unfolded.

One of the highlights of the evening after the exhibition used to be a dinner at Pathan’s Café.

On the Pooram day I would go with my cousins in the morning to hear Panchavadyam at Brahmaswam madham and then would go to the Vadakkunnathan temple before the Ilanjithara melam starts. We would leave the premises before it gets crowded and come to the Madham.

After that it was more or less hearing the Pooram, for me. I was permitted to walk only upto the main road going around the temple. You can’t really see anything except a vast ocean of people. The sound of Melam is suppressed by all the other stray sounds around and you sometimes would get a vision of the lined up caparisoned elephants with enchanting Thidambu and the colourful umbrellas. By the time the main fireworks start, I would be sleeping. Awakened by cousins, I would listen to the fireworks, half asleep.

I think it was when I was in 8^th standard, this routine changed and I was allowed to go with friends. The friends were four of my classmates from our village. Yet, my ‘aphan’ (my father’s younger brother) and my friend Mukundan’s father were with us. Though we were not very happy about two adults accompanying us, for me it was a far better proposition than sitting at the madham.

That year, the exhibition was not part of our agenda. Being Pooram day, Pathan’s café was so crowded.  But we could have a closure view of the Pooram including the ‘kudamaattam’ (the changing of umbrellas- a spectacular event) and we were far freer to move about. And we did manage to stay together without getting lost.

This routine continued for another three or four years and then after I moved away to Mumbai and later to other places, I missed the Pooram for many years.

The last Pooram I attended was about 15 years back. This time comfortably from the 2^nd floor verandah of my friend’s building in the round. It was good to be there watching the whole thing but the thrill of being in the middle with the crowd was a different experience.