I vaguely remember sitting on my dad's shoulder and watching a festival in Kerala. I was less than 5 years old then. 30 years later, in 2020, a good friend Narayanan told me that he was planning to visit Thrissur for the Pooram. The moment I heard this I knew I had to go with him. But then corona happened and like everything, Thrissur Pooram was also canceled.
Fast forward 2 years to 2022 April. After watching the Bootha Kola festival in Dakshin Kannada, and staying at a hostel in Calicut for a few days, I was all set to experience the Pooram in Thrissur. Tradition is to visit the Guruvayur Krishna temple and I did the same. I reached Thrissur the previous evening of the festival. The festival area was buzzing in preparation mode. With workers setting up the festivity area, arches, lights, sound systems, decorations, and temporary shops on the sides of the road and the roads starting to get more people wandering and looking around the festive preparations.
Elephants are central to the festival. And the previous evening of the mega festival the participating elephants along with their trainers line up for the audience. Crazy onlookers were busy watching this magnificent creature and also making sure to take their most precious selfies from all angles. Huge crowds were starting to gather as the elephants stood in a line like those mannequins in clothing shops. Standing there and watching all these happenings a few hours had passed. We decided to head back to the rooms to be ready for an early morning start the next day for 'The Pooram Festival.
I wasn't alone. Thankfully I was with Narayanan, his wife Preethika, and Sethu one of their friends. Narayanan and Preethika are avid travelers and they write their stories on their travel blog - Passingports. Being the planning kind, they both had planned out the whole event including the timings of when we should be where. They had booked rooms for the stay and a room to view the festivities from the top of a hotel. I didn't understand the importance of this but there were no rooms in the whole of Thrissur. Prices were 10 times higher than usual. I am not exaggerating. They paid 32K for a single room with a one-person bed. Being solo, I got to stay in the viewing room - the most expensive room I ever stayed in 🤷
That night was magical. A single bed, and a perfect large window. Multi-colored lit church at a distance and with the excitement for the celebration the next day I dozed off with the scene of me standing below the magical multicolored arches holding my phone above the heads of a sea of people to get a perfect shot of what I see 😴Some scenes that I slept off too 👇
More lights and more colors from the evening 💜💚❤️
It was 7 am. Narayan, Preethika, and Sethu came to my room dressed up and ready for the day. We quickly finished a good breakfast at the hotel and walked toward the entrance of the Sri Vadakkumnathan Temple. The main temple around which the Pooram happens.
The event starts with the main elephant walking out of the temple with the idol. The participating elephants walked out one by one through the main entrance of Sri Vadakkumnathan Temple and lined up in front of the temple for the eagerly waiting millions of humans. While the chenda melam had started in bits, I was busy staring at these mammoth beings from a feet distance 😊
The chenda continued. The crowd was running around towards the center area of the temple ground. Sethu pointed out to me to quickly rush towards the direction in which the crowd was moving. Before we started moving towards the crowd Sethu quickly called me towards him for a quick selfie. I didn't understand the importance of this then but the next day morning I realized I didn't have a chance to click a photo with Narayanan and Preethika throughout the festival. The next 10 hours were intense and packed. Sethu and I tried our best to get to the middle of the performance area to witness this magical performance for the next 90 minutes.
After watching the first performance, Sethu said lets quickly get into the temple as the main picture is yet to start. I was surprised by what Sethu told me but blindly listening to him, I followed. As we continued to run into the temple premises along with 1000 other boys, girls, elders, and children of ages. All of us ran to catch a spot to see the next performance. However, it was so crowded and the cops had well planned this in advance and we got pushed a little further away from the performance area.
For the next 2 to 3 hours we were mentally transported to a different world altogether. I tried to escape. going front. climbing up. But nothing worked. I finally gave in. Standing with my head down, hands up, and eyes closed just listening to the beat and shaking my head and hands just like the million other people around me. Never experienced anything like it ever before in my life. The energy, the sounds, the colors, the vibe - they will never go away from me. Some pieces for you are in this video below.
After this performance, I thought the festival was over and started looking for the rest of the gang. Only to realize they were nowhere to be found. I assumed that the main celebration was over and thought I will go to my room to rest for a while. What I witnessed after that I am sure is unique to Thrissur Pooram and nowhere else in the world.
The sea of humans. Never before have I seen anything like this. It was a mad crowd. My room was less than a kilometer away and it took me almost 2 hours to get to my room. There were times when I gave up and decided to just stand in the crowd without moving. Coz moving away in my direction required too much effort. It took a long time to find a hack. Amongst the huge crowd in one corner, I saw a wave/line of people moving. A line that moves in a particular direction just because of the sheer force of people pushing each other. All I had to do was somehow get into that line. As in struggle, and push me to get to the wave. Then the wave will just take me. I didn't have to walk. After two hours of finding waves and taking longer routes and walking almost 5 km through less crowded areas, I reached my room on the fourth floor only to witness what mad crowd I had walked through. Below are some photos of the crowd taken from my room.
For the next 4 hours, the festival continued, and the mad crowd stayed. Couldn't be more thankful to NH, and Preethika for planning this out. The fireworks got canceled for the night because of rain and later were postponed for the entire week. Thankfully I didn't wait. I woke up early the next day and went to get the blessings of the Sri Vadakkumnathan.
Lastly, the gothic style and the lights of the church caught my attention at night. Our lady of dolors basilica in Thrissur. The tallest church in India. Jesus lying in his mother's arms. Thanks, Universe ❤️
