THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Saudamini remembers how she used to come all the way from Kanyakumari as a young woman for the Attukal Pongala. She would bring a heavy earthen pot with her, and she would go scouring for stones to make the hearth. That’s all history now. With the special status that the pongala enjoys today, facilities have improved vastly. But Saudamini, who has aged along with the festival, says she would still brave the scorching sun if she had to.
Saudamini, 72, who works as a maid has been offering pongala for 36 years and has seen the festival burgeon into what it is now. “Although the crowd back then cannot be compared to the lakhs who come now, Attukal amma’s pongala was always a festive occasion and people used to come from distant places,” she said on Tuesday, after making the offering.
Saudamini says she sticks to tradition. She arrives a day prior to the pongala and sleeps near her ‘Amma.’ On ‘D-day’ she freshens up in the Killiyar, and then offers pongala braving the scorching sun. Even if the sun beats down upon her mercilessly, she couldn’t care less. “Amma has showered all her blessings upon me and has given me everything. Both my sons are wealthy now. Although they have abandoned me and I do not have a place to call my own, as long as amma is there with me, I have everything,” says Saudamini.
Sixty eight-year-old Omanamma from Varkala offered her 48th pongala on Tuesday. She stood soaking in the pious air that wafted across the Attukal kovil premises, reminiscing about the time when she had first accompanied her aunt to Attukal as a child, how it grew upon her and captivated her.
There was a time when green paddy fields surrounded the Attukal temple which was quite a small shrine, Omanamma says. “We used to sit inside the temple and offer the pongala. But over the years, the size of the crowd increased, and we were asked to move out and offer it outside,” she remembers. The facilities since then have largely improved. “Even now we go to Killiyar to take a dip and bathe as we used to do it back then,” she adds. Age-related ailments have not prevented her from making the pilgrimage every year.
Saudamini’s friend Rosamma, who also hails from Kanyakumari, has been offering pongala for the past 24 years. She never misses out on the pilgrimage, she says. “It’s been a tradition with us, bathing in the Killiyar before making the offering. I plan to come here as long as I can,” says Rosamma, who is 61. Yet another veteran is Santhamma, who works as a sweeper in Central Excise. She lost all her fingers on her right hand - except the thumb - in an accident in 2002. But that hasn’t stopped the 63-year-old from travelling to Attukal every year. “I started doing it 47 years ago.’’