Thaipusam

I was at the Thaipusam festival celebrations on 10 Feb. We went there started from Sentral Station at 9:45 pm, and finally reached Batu Caves at around 11 pm. Took two trains - the Komuter which changed in Sentul - the Komuter was packed!!! I have never been squeezed in a train before in trying to get through the door.

The celebration at the Batu Caves was quite grand - there were so many people there especially to look at the newest status of Lord Muruga which was the largest in the world. We actually trekked up the steps and reached the top temple and then trekked down in the crowd. Watching people performing their vows and some in a trance was quite an experience, one that we will never forget.


We finally left at around 2am and arrived home at 4am!



To view all the photos click here






About Thaipusam - excerpts from a local site
THAIPUSAM is an annual Hindu festival which draws the largest gathering in multi-racial Malaysia - nearly a million people in 2000.

Several hundred devotees spear their cheeks with long, shiny steel rods - often a metre long - and pierce their chests and backs with small, hook-like needles in penance. Tourists watch in awe as metal pierces the skin with hardly any bleeding and, apparently, no pain as the devotee stands in a trance in the dawn light after weeks of rigorous abstinence.

Over the years, curious British, American and Australian medical experts have come to observe and speculate. Some think the white ash smeared on the body, the juice squeezed from the yellow lime fruit or the milk poured on the pierced areas may help to numb the skin. But most admit they have no answer.

The devotees say it is faith.

There are plenty stories about what Thaipusam is about. Among the most popular is that it commemorates the day Lord Siva's consort, the powerful goddess Parvathi, gives her son, Murugan, the vel (lance) to vanquish three demons and their large army which were plaguing the world.

Thaipusam falls on a full moon day in the auspicious 10th Tamil month of Thai when the constellation of Pusam, the star of well-being, rises over the eastern horizon.

In Kuala Lumpur, the festival is celebrated on a mammoth scale at the Batu Caves temple on the outskirts of the city. It began in 1892, started by early Tamils who migrated to colonial Malaya.