a 9 elephants festival

in january 1997, my friend neora and i were travelling around south india. on the road from kalicut to kochin, in the state of kerala, our taxi driver suggested that we visit the elephant farm near the important temple town of guruvayur. we agreed.

there were about two dozen elephants of different ages around the place. we asked the farm people if the elephants were raised for any purpose. they said that the elephants serve in religious festivals.

- is there a festival soon?

- yes, big festival in trissur, 101 elephants, two months coming. many tourists.

- anything before?

- yes, this afternoon in natika beach, 25 kilometers from here.

we went to natika beach. it was the third and last day of the annual festival at the local village temple. the elephants were already there, walking clockwise around the inner temple. in front of them went a band with big round horns and different kinds of drums, playing loud music. many people walked behind.

after one full circle inside the temple walls, the procession went out to a big rectangular open court behind it, and disintegrated. after a while the elephants gathered again, and stood side by side in a row. originally there should have been 11 elephants, but one failed to arrive, and as the number must be odd, there were 9 elephants. they were richly decorated, and each elephant driver carried a high colored umbrella - green for the central elephant, red for the rest.

the central elephant carried the golden image of the goddess. not the main image which is always kept inside the temple, but a special one for such events. we were told that she is a figure of laxmi, goddess of wealth and consort of vishnu. whatever the relation, in her four hands she carries a lily-shaped trident, a dagger, a human head and a round bowl, and i didnt see these attributes in other laxmi figures.

as the band was playing, whenever they reached a climax, which happened every so often, two boys riding on each elephant would stand up, dance and raise their decorations.

slowly, the elephants went to the other side of the 200-m long court. they turned around and stood there for quite a while, under a big banner advertizing a tamil-speaking popular film. the band played and the boys danced and waved. then they went slowly back to the temple.

on the side of the entrance to the temple compound there was a makeshift street of busy commerce - clothes, toys, decorations, cheap jewellery, holy images, betting games, coffee and tea stalls.

the young people operating a coffee shop, that played western dance cassette music, told us that the festival would go on during the whole night. we took an impoverished room at the small hotel in the nearby town of triprayar, and went back to see the firecrackers at sunset.

unlike the night firecrackers which are visual, those at sunset, we were told afterwards, were supposed to give mostly a noise effect. this they did with a vengeance. it was a chain of short and wide bamboo tubes filled with gunpowder, stuck near each other in the ground, all around the rectangular waterpool in front of the temple. at first we almost took our place between them, and only when we saw nobody standing near us we realized what they were. when lit, a great ball of fire and smoke went around, one moment giving the effect of almost coming straight at us. 20 metres away in the coffee shop, we could feel the strong blast pushing us back.

these firecrackers were "new system", operated by a group of young professionals. throughout the night, they did mixtures of bamboo and western style firework shows around the pool.

behind the temple there was also "old system". it was an older man (several replaced each other during the night), who was continuing his family tradition. he would sit in front of a big lonely firework, and at some moment - we couldn't figure out a relation with the feast, but maybe there was - he would set it on fire, and send it flying up with a loud bang.

the shops and tea places remained open and busy well into the night.

in the early part of the night there was a theatre show of an episode of the mahabharata, which lasted for several hours.

meanwhile the elephant people were taking a nap, their decorations carefully ranged.

then the elephants went out again. the band played, and the boys danced and waved.

in the inner temple, rituals were also held for the main goddess image.

fire was everywhere. oil lamps and incense sticks filled the inner temple with light and smoke. big multi-flame torches were carried and waved and moved and fed with liquid ghee (clarified butter). a group of young girls stood at some distance from the elephants, constantly pouring ghee on small fire bars in their hand-held plates.

whenever we got tired of the noise and excitement, we would go sit for a chillout in front of the temple, on the other side of the waterpool. here was quiet, at least between the firecracker blasts, which were not completely predictable. once they were sent exploding a few meters above our heads, and another time a banana tree nearby caught fire, which was quickly put out.

from where we sat we could see the elaborate electric light show on the temple facade, along with its reflection in the pool. already during the day we noticed the workers putting up huge bundles of thin colored cables, and throughout the night, flickering bands of lights went around the facade in different shapes and forms. they were made by a myriad of tiny bulbs, controlled by a set of huge revolving cylinders, resembnling those in a mechanical music box but much bigger.

the festival finished at sunrise, with a last procession around the inner temple. we went to the beach to calm down, and then drove away.

we spent a peaceful day going around in a boathouse on the kerala backwaters, with great luxury and amazing views.

three days later we came back to natika. the temple was now closed for a week, and all was quiet.

so we went back to the beach.