22-ft ‘Pappanji’ effigy getting ready in Fort Kochi

December 28, 2014 09:43 am | Updated 09:43 am IST - Kochi:

A team of Kochi-based artists working on the 22-ft effigy of 'Pappanji' on the premises of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale office.

A team of Kochi-based artists working on the 22-ft effigy of 'Pappanji' on the premises of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale office.

A 22-ft effigy of ‘Pappanji’ is being readied for the year-end celebrations in Fort Kochi.

The Kochi Biennale Foundation (KBF) is organising the celebrations for 2014 at Fort Kochi beach carnival, where thousands of people including foreign tourists gather in big numbers annually to mark the end of the outgoing year.

Cochin carnival

Typically, a huge figure of the Pappanji, which is Portuguese for grandfather, is brought to the beach on December 31 and set alight to mark the end of the year.

The burning of the Pappanji also marks the end of the Cochin Carnival, which began in 1984, KBF said in a communication.

The Biennale has roped in a young artists’ group under 32-year-old sculptor Jasinther Rockfeller to make the figure of the Pappanji.

“We are shaping the Pappanji out of cloth, paper, straw and sack on an iron frame,” said Jasinther, an alumnus of RLV College of Fine Arts in Tripunithura.

“It is nice to contribute and be a part of a celebration that is so rooted in the local culture.”

Age-old custom

The custom of torching the Pappanji stems from a Portuguese belief that a year is born and matures before grows old—and is then burnt in effigy. It is a practice believed to have been brought to area by the Portuguese in the 16th century.

Thirty years ago, when the carnival started, organisers used to make the figure of an old, bearded European man in a suit and hat that was brought to the beach and lighted.

The local Jews, who were once a prominent community in Mattancherry, too carry out a similar ritual.

They make an effigy of a minister in the court of the Biblical king Nebuchadnezzar and throw stones at it for the cruelty he committed against the Jews in ancient times, said a communication.

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