Today was the biggest festival day for females, Atukal Ponkala, in Trvandrum. Every year people come for this festival is increasing in double. No amount of heat from this scorching February sun deters them from coming to Trivandrum to attend d this festival. It is a huge gathering. This temple is also known as the female Sabarimala.
The story goes like this, Kannaki ‘s husband Kovalan went to sell his wife’s anklet when they ran out of money. Since it looked similar to the queen’s anklet the gold smith who saw the anklet informed the king about this. The king suspected that he stole it and ordered him to be killed. Once she heard about this, she ran to the king’s durbar in a rage. She told the king that the other anklet she has is with her and asked him what was inside the queen’s anklet. It was told the queen’s anklet had pearls inside and Kannaki said hers had rubies inside. She throws the anklet she had with her on the floor and it broke and everybody saw she was right. There were rubies inside. She was so angry and her anger burned Madura city. She started walking aimlessly and eventually came to Thiruananthapuram. When she reached here she turned herself to a young girl and seeing her, an old man understood that she is no ordinary girl. He requested her to stay here.
Since then every year females offers her this sweet payasam/ponkala on a particular day. People will start arriving two days before and the roads will be lined with bricks acting as temporary stove for cooking. The weather is usually extremely hot during this time. But all these people patiently wait from dawn till afternoon. I have seen the faces of the women who returned to their homes looking satisfied. I didn’t see a tired face, or an impatient face even though they are probably dead tired. . Most of them are walking with heavy bags on their head, which is filled with sweet rice, and other sweets made with rice and jiggery etc. They seemed in no rush even though they all have to walk at least 30 minutes or more to catch the vehicles they came to go back to their homes. The best part of this festival is that all the mosques, churches on this day around this area offers help, food and water to the females who comes for this festival. On this day there are no barriers between people, just one human being helping another human being. It is a wonderful sight..
Our ‘chechy ‘here, went at 4am and came back dead tired at 5pm.
Here mil/amma makes this ponkala at our home. It is too hard for her to go there in the rush. So she makes this at our home. She had been doing this for the past 3 years. This year also she did, and it came out real good.
The story goes like this, Kannaki ‘s husband Kovalan went to sell his wife’s anklet when they ran out of money. Since it looked similar to the queen’s anklet the gold smith who saw the anklet informed the king about this. The king suspected that he stole it and ordered him to be killed. Once she heard about this, she ran to the king’s durbar in a rage. She told the king that the other anklet she has is with her and asked him what was inside the queen’s anklet. It was told the queen’s anklet had pearls inside and Kannaki said hers had rubies inside. She throws the anklet she had with her on the floor and it broke and everybody saw she was right. There were rubies inside. She was so angry and her anger burned Madura city. She started walking aimlessly and eventually came to Thiruananthapuram. When she reached here she turned herself to a young girl and seeing her, an old man understood that she is no ordinary girl. He requested her to stay here.
Since then every year females offers her this sweet payasam/ponkala on a particular day. People will start arriving two days before and the roads will be lined with bricks acting as temporary stove for cooking. The weather is usually extremely hot during this time. But all these people patiently wait from dawn till afternoon. I have seen the faces of the women who returned to their homes looking satisfied. I didn’t see a tired face, or an impatient face even though they are probably dead tired. . Most of them are walking with heavy bags on their head, which is filled with sweet rice, and other sweets made with rice and jiggery etc. They seemed in no rush even though they all have to walk at least 30 minutes or more to catch the vehicles they came to go back to their homes. The best part of this festival is that all the mosques, churches on this day around this area offers help, food and water to the females who comes for this festival. On this day there are no barriers between people, just one human being helping another human being. It is a wonderful sight..
Our ‘chechy ‘here, went at 4am and came back dead tired at 5pm.
Here mil/amma makes this ponkala at our home. It is too hard for her to go there in the rush. So she makes this at our home. She had been doing this for the past 3 years. This year also she did, and it came out real good.
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