Thrissur Pooram, the biggest gathering and crowd puller
temple festival of Kerala, displays the battle of rich culture and material
riches and it is a friendly match at Kurukshethra on April 22. The colourful(fes)climax of the festival was with hammering fireworks from Paramekkavu and Thiruvampadi temples, which made brighten the dark night sky. Number of devotees reached on Saturday morning itself to Thekkinkadu Maidan to join in festival and to watch ‘cherupoorams’. Different temples around the Thrissur arranged ten relatively petite parades of caparisoned tuskers to line up in front of Paramekkavu and Thiruvampadi Temples in the morning. Around mid-morning Pakal Pooram started with rituals of offering paeans to deities.
15 row of decorated elephants, top of each elephant three
people there to carry peacock feather fan, white gazelle hair fan, silver
sequinned parasols. Paramekkavu Padmanabhan (name of elephant) and Thiruvampadi
Shivasundar(name of elephant) took the
pride of carrying the golden thidambu for their own deities.
A Muslim resident in Bangalore, he was here as a viewer and
replied about the festival that it is very happy to see atmosphere of
friendliness among different religious groups here. Another Christian guest commented that they
are very pleased to see this unity among people of India.
The season of Pooram is in the month of Medam(by Kerala
Calender), which starts from mid April and end on May first of every year.
Foreign tourist Stan Sherman amazed about the fireworks on
Friday night and this was the first time he saw big parade of elephants in an
Indian festival, there are 100 or more caparisoned elephants took part in
parade and he was very pleased to be here.
Kudamattom is the big attraction of the event; this is doing
by exchanging colorful umbrellas among devotees.
The festival has a long history, which starts from 18th century. The King Sakthan, who ruled Kochi started the festival. The word ‘Pooram’
is in Malayalam means a group and Thrissur Pooram is believed as the gathering
of gods and goddesses for a day of celebration.
