தைப்பூசம் - Thaipusam

As Wikipedia indicates, the Thaipusam is a Hindu festival celebrated mostly by the Tamil community on the full moon in the Tamil month of Thai (Jan/Feb). Pusam refers to a star that is at its highest point during the festival. The festival commemorates the birthday of Lord Murugan (also Subramaniam), the youngest son of Shiva and Parvati.

But Thaipusam is much more than "just another traditional festival"! Thaipusam is the most intense religious ceremony I ever attended! Thaipusam begins few days before the full moon. Participants gather in an Hindu temple in Kuala Lumpur and process to the Batu Caves, 20 km up North from KL, smashing coconuts all over the place as an offering to Gods on their way. One curious thing is that Thaipusam doesn't exist in India, Kuala Lumpur is really the main place to see this ceremony. It also takes places in Singapore, but to a lesser extend.

Once in Batu Caves, the most sacred place for Hinduism in Kuala Lumpur, the devotees prepare for the celebration by cleansing themselves through prayer and fasting for several days. Meanwhile, complex ceremonies take place to prepare the Kawadis. Basically Kawadis are portable altar up to two meters tall, decorated with peacock feathers and, wait, there is more, attached to the devotee through 108 vels pierced into the skin on the chest and back! Some of the most fervent devotees attach offerings to their back with hooks stuck underneath their skin. Fire walking and flagellation can be practiced as well.

This mortification of the flesh sometime gets a bit too extreme and Thaipusam is often criticized as an incentive to masochism. The look in the devotees eyes is really scary and I could see most of them collapsing after climbing the 200 stairs leading inside the cave, to the temple where they can deliver their offerings. It is hard to believe that there is no drug involved in such behavior, but an Hindu colleague of mine, whose family is very religious and involved in the ceremony, swore me that the devotees reach such level of transe only with food and sleep deprivation and intense prayers all day long during several days. They are supposed to reach such level of faith that they don't feel pain and that their wounds don't bleed when the skin gets pierced. I'm really confused, I don't know what to believe. But I don't underestimate the power of human mind when it comes to spirituality and religious devotion...

Anyway, it was an incredible night: the procession starts at midnight, and one million people are gathered in a huge crowd, so thick that for few hours I litterally didn't see my feet, I was carried by the crowd.