Paying heed to demand from animal lovers from across the State and outside, the committee that supervises the annual car festival at Kalpathy has decided to ease the burden of the elephant to be used to pull the chariot by making available earth moving equipment proclainer.
First time in its more than 300 years of history, the car festival scheduled for next week will witness use of proclainer, better known as JCB, to lighten the burden of the elephant commissioned to push the chariot of Lord Vishwanatha Swamy and Goddess Visalakshi. Yet another novelty of this year’s festival is replacing of the chariot’s large creaking wooden wheels with cast-iron wheels.
“It is indeed a welcome relief. The festival committee and the district administration have considered our request favourably. A chariot weighs 12 tonnes while the existing laws preventing elephants from pushing weight beyond 1000 kg,” said V.K. Venkitachalam, secretary of Thrissur-based Heritage Animal Task Force.
Going by tradition, the festival committee used to commission two elephants for use at the car festival. While the devotees pull the chariot using ropes from the front, the elephants push it from the back.
Symbolic gesture
This year, only one elephant will be present and it will push the chariot symbolically. The proclainer will move the chariot through the streets of Kalpathy.
Mr. Venkitachalam said he would continue the campaign against using elephants in temple festivals. “We do hope elephants would be completely avoided from the Kalpathy festival in coming years. We have made similar pleas to chariot festival organisers of Avaloor and Koduvayur in Palakkad district,” he said.
“In Tamil Nadu, many temples are using earth movers to push chariots. Here also we can follow that pattern,” said Kalpathy resident and social worker P.N. Viswanathan.
The festival this year is being scheduled for November 14 to 16 and it will attract both pilgrims and tousrists from in and out of the country. All arrangements including repairing of the roads are now over.
The festival is one of the biggest festivals of its kind in the country and next only to the Puri Jagannath Swamy temple car festival. For the devotees, the car trundling its way through the streets of the Agraharams (Brahmin settlements) of Kalpathy on the three days of the festival presents an experience for which they wait the entire year.
All the Agraharams in the district warm up to the festival in a traditional way. It is believed that the Tamil Brahmins who migrated to Palakkad in the 14th century established 96 Agraharams, 18 of which are in Palakkad town.
