Kerala: God wants a new car

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: In 2015 alone, there were over 2000 incidents of captive elephants running wild, destroying everything that stood in their way. At least 17 people were killed, and nearly 100 injured, not to speak of the incalculable material damages inflicted. In only three months this year, there have been over 300 incidents of captive elephant fury. Already six people have been killed. And here is a statistic that should have worked as an eye-opener: More than 95 percent of elephant-related savagery in the state has taken place around religious pageantries.

Still, the Malayali devotee seems to be clamouring for more elephants. For him, the spectacle matters more than survival. He resembles the wonderstruck man in Stanley Kubrik’s 1963 classic ‘Dr Strangelove’ who looks up at the bombers dropping deadly stuff over his land as if he had just spotted a radiant display of aurora borealis on the northern sky.

Any suggestion to remove the elephant from the festival scene is viewed as sacrilege. “It is unthinkable,” said Krishna Kumar, the manager of Paravoor Mookambika Temple. “They are dangerous, and prohibitively costly. But these reasons are not compelling enough for a devotee to think of a festival without elephants,” he said.

The palanquin that will be employed by Kumarapuram Koyikkal Palliyara Bhagavathy Temple.(Photo: DC)

The state’s foremost elephant activist V K Venkitachalam is livid. “These devotees decorate an elephant in the most painstaking manner. They fix a caparison on its forehead, adorn its feet with anklets, deck it up with garlands but refuse to give it water,” he said.

But the realisation that the practice is harmful to both man and beast has gradually dawned. The first ray of change was witnessed in 2009 over the Kanichukulangara Temple in Alappuzha. In fact, it was the Kanichukulangara Devi who first spoke up for the beleaguered elephant.

Bhadra, the presiding deity, when an ‘ashtamangalyaprasnam’ was conducted to know her mind, said her idol should not be mounted on the back of a hapless elephant, but on the shoulders of men who had undergone fasting and penance for 40 days.

“The Devi was rightly angry. Taking the elephant for the ‘parayeduppu’ along populated, congested areas is very risky. It is stressful for the elephant. The poor thing has to be on the road from dawn to dawn,” said Vellappally Natesan, president of the Kanichukulangara Devi Temple governing body.

What’s more, the ‘thidambu ’, at times, comes into contact with the electric lines on top. A palanquin, Vellappally said, is highly secure. “It consumes much less space, there is no need to fear the electric lines, and is faster. And the procession can visit any number of houses without a prick of conscience,” he said.

Recently, down south in Thiruvananthapuram, Kumarapuram Koyikkal Palliyara Bhagavathy Temple has decided to do away with elephants. Instead, when the ‘parayeduppu’ is conducted on April 18, the deity will be carried in a specially-made palanquin. It is said such sensible approach to religious affairs can happen only in the southern parts and not upwards of Thrippunithura where there is a blind passion for elephants.

However, this notion was put to rest this year at Kombara Sree Krishna Swami Temple, near Irinjalakkuda. The festival did not flaunt an elephant this year. “We brought down the number of elephants gradually over the years,” said Raman Namboodiri of Kavanattu Mana that runs the temple. Year before last, the festival had three elephants; last year, one elephant for just one day. And this year, the beast vanished.

A spiritual realisation seems to have prompted the decision. “The Lord will definitely not be happy sitting on top of an animal that has been subjected to unspeakable cruelty,” he said. Here is yet another logic, which other
festival committees are refusing to acknowledge. “Devotees can enjoy the temple festival without fear,” Raman Namboodiri said.