Hundreds of people thronged Kalpathy village in Palakkad on Wednesday, the first day of the week-long car festival. The ceremonial flag was hoisted at Viswanatha Swamy Temple, the main centre of the festival, in the morning. By evening, the festival fervour started gripping the whole region with people from faraway places arriving to listen to the music festival, which also commenced on Wednesday.
The music festival, being organised by the District Tourism Promotion Council with the assistance of the State government, began with a concert by Carnatic vocalist Rithvik Raja. R.K. Sreeram Kumar (violin), Sreemooshnam V. Rajarao (mridangam) and S.V. Ramani (ghatam) provided accompaniment. M.B. Rajesh, MP, inaugurated the festival. Shafi Parambil, MLA, presided.
Festive ambiance, fervour
Major events of the festival will be held on November 14, 15, and 16. Hundreds of pilgrims and tourists will throng the ancient village of Tamil Brahmins on these days. On the first day, religious rituals, including rudrabhishekam, Vedic recital, rudrakramarchana, ezhunnellathu, and deeparadhana were held at Manthakkara Mahaganapathi Temple, Chathapuram Prasanna Mahaganapathy Temple, and Old Kalpathy Lakshmee Narayana Perumal Temple.
The process of decorating the heavily carved temple cars has begun.
The cars will move through the streets of the agraharams on three main days of the festival.
The Kalpathy car festival, dedicated to Viswanatha Swamy, the presiding deity of the major temple in the village, is one of the biggest festivals of its kind in the country.
On November 14, the deity is taken out in a procession. Deities of the new Kalpathy temple, old Kalpathy temple, and Chathapuram temple are similarly taken out on the next three days respectively.
