HUBBALLI: A sea of devotees is all set to congregate at Gavisiddeshwara Mutt in Koppal to attend the fortnight long annual car festival, which begins on Sunday. Around five lakh people are expected to take part in the chariot pulling ritual. The event is known as Kumbh Mela of south India as 10 to 12 lakh devotees are expected to visit the district in the next fortnight.
The ‘dasoha’ or offering of food to devotees is one of the most challenging tasks. Around 22 lakh jowar rotis meant for the devotees have been stacked up. For centuries, the villagers around the mutts start preparing the rotis from jowar flour much ahead of the festival.
Truck loads of jowar rotis start arriving at the mutt premises. A large pandal is erected in the open ground belonging to the mutt to store the rotis. The stack is preserved, kept clean, monitored physically and through CCTV cameras, supervised by officials from the Health Department.
“For many years, the pontiff of this mutt offered food and raised funds to educate and extend stay facilities for poor children, especially from the rural areas of north Karnataka. The participation of the large number of devotees is attributed to the secular outlook of the mutt. This year, Sadguru has been invited. When yoga guru Baba Ramdev was here he called it the ‘Kumbh of South’ after witnessing the huge gathering,” explained Arun Kumar, assistant professor, Gavisiddeshwara Degree College, Koppal.
Kumar added that besides the jowar rotis, many homes and organisations take up the responsibility of preparing a sweet dish called ‘Maaledi’ or ‘Maadli’ in large quantities. “A group of friends and few families have promised to donate the dish weighing up to 2.5 tonne in the next two weeks. A day before the annual car festival, about 275 quintal of raw rice was unloaded at the mutt kitchen. In a way, its a people’s fair,” Kumar said. The present pontiff of the mutt is Anhinava Gavisiddeshwara Swamiji.