Thrissur Pooram2019 a photo story
Pooram of Thrissur, a small primer before the pics. This is the best pooram in the whole world.. or is it galaxy? Yes we thissurkarans/Karis (People from a town in Kerala India), believe it that way! Ask any from there…!
Pooram — although a malayalam calender day, is the name synonymous to temple festival in Kerala. This is most attended because it is the town’s festivals where many temples are involved. So it brings in resources of many temples to make it an extravaganza. Main being the Paramekavu Devi temple, Vadakunathan Shiva temple and Thiruvambady Krishna temple of the 10 temples which participate.
It is thronged by people.. sadly mainly men, the whole of the town is filled with people from everywhere, who come here for a party. From keeping away from the Pooram precincts to braving the crowd is my journey of progress with Pooram experience. There are many discussions on why Pooram is not a women’s place. What I would say, unless you make it one, it never would be. An actress made a statement just to make a flutter, have they even tried coming to precincts of Thrissur during Pooram, we here the true thrissurKaris attend pooram every year. Thanks to my mother we both go for it every year. She represents the Paramekkavu side and I am a strong supporter of the Thiruvambady side. So we have our squabbles as to whose fireworks are better, whose elephants were more magnificent to whose pandals were more decorated. So there are many aspects of this festivals, which I know of .
The huge array of elephants who participate, this time there was a huge hue and cry on the elephants who are supposed to do the major event of pooram start — vilambaram. https://www.livemint.com/news/india/kerala-cpm-s-latest-political-headache-is-raman-an-elephant-1557381141722.html. Which the natives say was a “prahasanam” a mockery of the not so important aspect of pooram. Sometimes we feel there is more politics added to our pooram than needed. But we wade through all of these every year to enjoy these galaxies most sought after pooram.
The beautiful gopurams/pandals which are put up by each of the temples in different junctions. To be noted, the Thiruvambady has two every year and Devi temple has only one. So we are the winners undoubtedly.
The fireworks, there is a sample which shows a glimpse of the big one and tests the ground. The main one is something which we look forward to. It really rocks the whole Thrissur.
The beautiful caparisons of the elephants, the umbrellas being the best in variety. There is a pseudo competition of sorts among the temples with the display of their umbrellas, which is one of the main events called Kudamattom (Umberalla exchange)
I know there is much more to pooram, I am still at the superficial level of its exploratory path. I was never allowed to go to poora parambu ( the ground) when young. Would like to know of the different kinds of vadyams used in each of the processions (Elanjithara Melam, Thidambu of paramekkavu , the panchavadyam of the madathil varavu) so there are loads to find out about it. Hoping to do so in the coming years with more ease.
Here are some photos. For more on pooram and thrissur here is my handle — www.instagram.com/lthampi
