This year, 1.5 million Tamil pilgrims will converge outside of Kuala Lumpur to appease Lord Muruga with extreme acts of physical penance. It is the most stunning festival on earth.
You will come to the Malay capital of Kuala Lumpur as the constellation Poosam moves into ascendancy during the Tamil month of Thai. It’s shortly before midnight. The moon’s full. The rain torrential. In the next 24 hours, the city’s population will swell by more than a quarter million Indians. Which is to say nothing for the Chinese New Year celebrations this week too.
Come morning, a procession of fanatics will drive metal spears through their faces and stab giant hooks into their backs. They will walk, for miles, some half-naked, on the sharp ends of sandals made from nails, performing feats of self-mutilation. Then, under a near-equatorial sun, they will climb almost 300 steps to the vast limestone Batu Caves, which have been described as “gigantic cathedrals.”
In honour of the birth of the deity Lord Muruga (sometimes called Subramaniam), Hindu devotees—predominately Indian Tamils—seek atonement for the previous year’s misdeeds and favour for the year to follow by performing acts of penance during this 14-kilometre pilgrimage from Kuala Lumpur to the Batu Caves. Approximately 10% of Malaysia’s 27.5 million citizens are ethnic Indians. The celebration is banned in India, where many feel it has become more spectacle than religious rite, specifically with respect to the extreme worshippers who undergo astonishing acts of self-mutilation.
The night before it happens, you will find a lively Chinatown cafe that serves frog porridge. A Boston kid, with dark circles under his eyes, stacks a guitar and duffel bag against the wall, and asks to join your table. “I guess you’re here for that festival too,” he says. He’s hitchhiked from Hanoi. It’s the tail of monsoon season and the dimly lit room buzzes with Thaipusam.
“Spectacularly masochist feats,” an Australian girl reads from a dog-eared Lonely Planet guidebook.
“Pete told me it’s the most stunning thing in Malaysia,” another says.
“Banned in India!” a thick Eastern European accent booms.
“It’s banned everywhere, but Malaysia and Singapore,” someone else chimes in haughtily.
Another voice whispers, “Is it safe?”
There’s a nervous anticipation. Like driving by a traffic accident just as the cops arrive, feeling curious, but a touch apprehensive, about the possibility of seeing a decapitated head in the ditch. As the night wanes, the streets and cafes empty out. Two amputees in drenched and tattered rags belt uneven Beatles songs by the door. Cat-sized rats scurry out from unseen holes.
By dawn, the rain has stopped. Muslim girls in head scarves and school uniforms scuttled along the streets. Carts of exotic produce are wheeled about. Congee and dahl and Penang laksa simmer in big pots. Down one street, a butcher cuts the heads off live chickens. You board a bus, which is quickly snared up in the mounting throng of human traffic — something like 1.5 million people marching towards the Batu Caves. You disembark and march along with them. And then you catch your first glimpse of the “gigantic cathedrals” at the end of the procession. Drums thunder out a hundred different rhythms. People shuffle like ants to the foot of the hill, then up it, as if ascending a giant dragon’s tongue, into a gaping mouth.
It’s not until mid-afternoon that the horde of pilgrims, who have adopted you, spills into the main procession of devotees. The drums become deafening, the accretion of aggressive whistles and chants alarming. Black clouds of burning camphor shoot through your sinus cavity like a Vicks eight ball. And the motley spectrums of colour whirs even faster: fresh limes and oranges, small brass bells, flowers and peacock feathers, tinsel and tissue paper — all of it skewered into the backs and chests and necks and limbs of human bodies. Kavadis, large, convoluted frames, some metal, some wood, balanced over devotees’ shoulders and “fastened” into flesh, are carried like cubic Christmas trees without branches.
For more than an hour, you will follow the tedious progression of just one devotee. Barely in his twenties. Bare-chested. Scrawny. A meek swath of hair grows above his lip, and thin skewers almost a foot in length pierce both upper and lower lips horizontally in opposite directions. Several ornaments dangle from hooks in his back. He’s flanked by two drummers; driven forward by a spellbinding rhythm that builds to crescendo, then suddenly drops off, depending how much coaxing is needed.
Kavadi is Tamil for “burden.” It’s the boy’s first time carrying such a physical and spiritual weight, and he’s long since retreated into a trance. The chanting and the hypnotic rhythm of the drums coax worshippers into a meditative, trance-like state that helps them to transcend the physical burden. His face contorts, his arms and legs tremble. The temperature had reached the mid-thirties. The humidity is crippling.
To acquire the necessary endurance for Thaipusam, participants cleanse over the month leading up to the festival. They deny themselves alcohol, tobacco and sex. They offer daily prayers, meditate and adhere to a strict vegetarian diet.
At times, when the young Tamil seems to lose consciousness, his family circles around him. Dancing. Singing. Encouraging. Loving. Willing him forward. A spotter braces him until he has strength to move again. Waves of onlookers chant encouragement. (On this day, you will not see a single participant carried.)
In the height of the afternoon sun, the atmosphere feels paradoxically easier. The strange combinations of hues more aesthetic, the aromas less hostile. You have become a cell in the seething Thaipusam organism. With surprising fervour, you find your own head bobbing at the drum’s prodding. You find yourself vested in this boy. Cheering loudly, just like at home in the bleachers at a football game.
When you reach the first of the 272 steep steps that lead up to the caves, the boy smashes a coconut, to symbolize the shattering of ego. As he climbs, wild macaque monkeys screech and jump furiously among the trees and rocks that engulf the stairs. They hurl rocks and bottles.
You will enter the temple, behind the boy and his family, at the back of the biggest cave. You pour cow’s milk over a shrine. An older woman jerks the skewers from the boy’s lips. Quickly, smoothly. There is almost no blood. He wince, then extends his tongue over the wounds curiously. The verve floods back into his eyes. He smiles painfully. He smiles broadly.
SIMILAR: An electric shock machine and the last days of the seedy mythological border town bender.
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Tags: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Religious Holidays, Thaipusam, Travel
