Today, even as the fires burn in a thousand hearths in an offering of devotion to the presiding deity of Attukal Devi Temple, waiting in the wings would be a batch of women who have been on their toes for the last eight days. These are women who clearly seem to believe that cleanliness is next to Godliness. They ensure that the denizens wake up to a spic and span city after the Pongala is over.
MetroPlus caught up with the women one evening when they had finished a round of cleaning to spruce up the premises of the temple and its surroundings.
Damayanthi, one of the women, is exhausted, but she can’t stop smiling.
“I don’t have time to go back to my home at Thrikkannapuram and freshen up. I will do that at our office in Manacaud since I have to return to the temple at the earliest as my next shift starts at 12 midnight,” she says, as she joins a group of women, all dressed in navy blue saris, leaving the temple.
It is that time of the year when the capital city witnesses the largest conglomeration of women to offer Pongala to the deity at Attukal Devi Temple. By evening, once the devotees pack their belongings and rush home, roads and pavements are littered with bricks, ash, food and plastic waste. But by night there is a change of scene and the roads get thoroughly cleaned. All thanks to scores of sanitation workers like Damayanthi who labour hard to make it happen.
Employed by the City Corporation, these women, especially those working around the temple and on its premises, are on duty from the first day of the 10-day-long festival.
While the other wards in the Corporation, which are declared festival zones, press their sanitation workers into service only on the day of the Pongala, for the Manacaud circle, under which the Attukal temple falls, the work begins early. They have to be out there with their long brooms, sweeping away the plastic and organic waste that are then collected in vehicles and removed.
“This year we have 70 employees who work in four shifts – 12 midnight, 3 a.m., 7 a.m. and 2 p.m. Out of this, 29 are permanent workers of the Corporation and the rest are daily wage labourers and Kudumbashree workers. Today, we will hire 50 or more temporary workers so that the area is cleared of all kinds of waste at the earliest,” says Sreekumar S., Health Inspector, Manacaud circle, City Corporation.
This work is not new for most of the sanitation workers as most of them have put in several years of service. Fifty-seven-year-old Pappa Thangam is the senior-most of the group with 28 years of service.
“When the festival is on, we have to clean the roads, the parking ground and the auditorium where food is served. It isn’t easy moving around in the hot sun. On the day of the Pongala, we start our work from midnight itself. The temple premises have to be cleaned before and after the Vilakkukettu (when a procession is taken to the temple from various places in the vicinity). After that the preparations for the Pongala offering begin. Most of us haven’t offered Pongala for long because we don’t get the time. As soon as the holy water is sprinkled on the offering, signalling the end of the Pongala, we have to start the cleaning,” says Thangam.
Then there are people like Thangayyan, a driver of one of the Corporation vehicles that transport the waste, who have to be on duty the whole day. “In the initial days of the fete we used to get a little breathing space. But that changes two days prior to the Pongala, when the roads and all the available space near the temple are taken over by devotees. It becomes very difficult for the workers to do their job. We have to clean areas such as Chiramukku, Kamaleswaram and Annikkavilakam, and in the other direction it goes till Manacaud and Attakulangara.
The post-Pongala cleaning process can go up to late at night or the wee hours of the next day,” says Thangayyan.
The toughest part is cleaning the roads and bylanes from Attukal to Manacaud, the workers say. “The devotees would be in a hurry to get home, and we have to clean the stretch from Attukal to the Sastha Temple junction, Manacaud, before the deity is taken out along the stretch in a grand procession late in the evening,” says Ushakumari, a sanitation worker with the Manacaud circle for the last 23 years.
The workers, divided into five sections, have to force their way through the crowd to clear the debris.
“The lorries that are used to transport the garbage have to make their way through the crowded streets. We race against time to finish the work,” says Sreekumar.
With the number of devotees on the rise, the cleaning process isn’t getting any easier.
However, according to Ushakumari, the decision to do away with sun-baked earthen bricks has helped.
“Those bricks get crushed easily and it becomes very difficult for us to sweep it away. Burnt bricks, meanwhile, can easily be removed and there are willing hands to collect the bricks,” she says.
Braving the hot sun and roads choked with dust and smoke, these workers have a tough job. “But we never stop and do our best,” says Remadevi, a Kudumbashree staff member.
It is the spirit of the occasion that keeps them in high spirits.
For a clean city
Thirteen circles under 20 wards of the Corporation have been declared as festival zones. “We have 2,484 workers on the rolls this year, which is much more than last year’s figure, because the radius in which the hearths are kept by devotees keeps on increasing. Last year we had to find temporary staff for places such as Medical College, Kesavadasapuram and Kowdiar and this year we have assigned our own staff members there,” says Corporation Health standing committee chairperson S. Pushpalatha.
Saju J.’s Tharangini artificial rain unit will treat the city to artificial rain tonight. After the roads are cleared of all kinds of debris, by nine or 10 p.m., three units of Tharangini will move around the city to clean the roads. “We have been doing this for the last four years. Last year we sprayed artificial rain at spots such as Secretariat premises, Palayam, East Fort, Chala, Overbridge and Thampanoor,” says Saju. Prior to that, water tankers, both of the Corporation and private firms, will wash the roads from Palayam to East Fort.
