Sree Padmanabaswamy Temple, Trivandrum

Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple, Trivandrum

The Sri Padmanabhaswamy Temple is one of my favorite temples, mainly because I lived around the temple for so many years and the festivals of the temple were my childhood fantasies.  The notable festival is the Aaarattu festival and Navarathri festival during which we used to regularly visit.  The city of Thiruvananthapuram received its name from the temple - Thiru Anantha Puram, the Adobe of Lord Anantha Padmanabha.

Attukal Temple, Trivandrum

View of the sculptures on top of the entrance to temple.

Attukal Bhagavathi Temple in Trivandrum is one of the prominent religious places of Kerala. It is called Sabarimala of Women due to the annual Attukal Pongala (offering) festival solely participated by Women from Kerala and neighboring Tamilnadu.  The temple structure is built with sculptures from story of Kannagi who is believed to be the deity here. 

Attukal Pongala Festival at Trivandrum

Attukal Temple Main Entrance

Today is the Attukal Pongala Festival.  That is when the "largest gathering of women in the World" happens.  There is a Guinness world record registered for this festival.  During my childhood days, this was a time of joy and festivities.  The days leading to the "Pongala" festival were very eventful with lot of programs and activities planned by local clubs and temples.  Everyone in the city irrespective of their religion participated in them.  We used to have "Ganamela" during the nights near my place at Karamana.  Singers used to sing popular Malayalam and Tamil songs throughout the night.  The temple also use do have daily music and dance programs all the 10 days. On the day of Pongala, the local clubs and residents used to serve "Panakkam" (a drink made of jaggery, cardomom and sugar) and "Sambaram" (a drink made of curd, water, curry leaves, ginger and salt) to devotees.

Attukal Temple

Trivandrum city itself paints a festive look with no vehicle movement and full of devotees who comes from different parts of the city, state and neighboring states.  The story of Attukal Temple is linked to Tamilnadu.  It is believed that Kannaki, the central character of Tamil epic Silapathikaram, came to Trivandrum on the way to Kodungallur.  Kannaki is the diety in the Attukal Temple.  The temple is situated in the banks of Killi river and is very near to the city center.

Ladies making Pongala in mud pots using brick stoves

During the Pongala Festival, millions of ladies get together to pray the goddess and offer her "Pongala" (rice cooked with jaggery, ghee, coconut as well as other ingredients).  It is cooked in earth pots around the temple.  During recent times due to high number of devotees coming to the temple, the area where pongala is prepared has grown to few kilometers around the temple covering most parts of the city.  There were around 2.5 million ladies performed pongala last year, and this year is said to surpass this mark.  During this day, only ladies and kids are allowed near the temple where pongala is performed. 

Pongala getting prepared

When I see the live telecast of this festival in the Malayalam TV channels today, it takes me back to good old days.  It has been a while since I could participate in the Pongala.  I tried to remember when was the last time.  No, I can't remember it.  It has been that far back since I was in Trivandrum during this time.  May be I should plan to attend it next year.

Attukal Temple Pond

Excellent pictures about Attukal Pongala can be found at http://attukalpongala.blogspot.com/

Annular Solar Eclipse on Jan 15th 2010

This is suppose to be the longest eclipse in 100 years. I was on a flight to Sydney during this time and missed an opportunity to experience this. It was visible in many southern cities of India including my home town of Trivandrum. Below of some pictures taken by my brother of this rare and magnificent event in the universe.








Photos courtesy Radhakrishnan A

Remembering my school days

Have been thinking to write this for some time. A rare personal article on this blog. Since I left Trivandrum for Chennai in search of job, I had seldom visited the places where I grew up. During one of my recent visits to Trivandrum, I took time to visit the places I studied. Below are some pictures of places which shaped my early days.

Vishwabharati Nursery School, Karamana, Trivandrum

My early schooling started at Vishwabharati Nursery School opposite to where we used to stay in Karamana. I am surprised to see that it has not changed after so many years. It has been more than 30 years since I walked out of this school. I might have studied pre-KG and LKG here.

After my time here, I was moved to one of the best schools in Trivandrum at that time, Chinmaya Vidyalaya, Vazhuthacaud. It was one of the first schools started by Chinmaya Mission in 1969. Since the school was away from my home, there was a taxi which dropped us to school every day. During this time, I got to meet Swamy Chinmayananda who was a frequent visitor to the school. He used to spent good time with the students. I still remember him reaching us how to do magic with a coin. He is one of the early influences in my life to show how divinity would be using his calming presence. I studied here till my 6th standard. At that time this school was only having lower primary classes and hence I had to move out.

Govt. Girls High School, Karamana, Trivandrum

Govt. Boys High School, Karamana, Trivandrum

My next school was Government High School, Karamana. Walkable from my home, this school was on the banks for Karamana River, one of the major rivers flowing through Trivandrum. Both boys and girls high school were on the same campus and shared a common playground. Boys school had a good building and Girls school was having building only for class 10. Other classes were held in bamboo sheds with coconut leaf thatched roof.

Me having studied in English medium joined the Girls school since Boys school had only Malayalam medium. The school had one division for every class as co-ed with English as a medium. I studied here from 7th to 10th (SSLC). Most of my fond memories about school life are during this time. I was an average student who didn't hog any limelight during my school days.

Karamana River

During out past time, other than playing games of football, cricket, kabaddi etc, we used to go fishing in the river. There was only a wall separating the school from the river and whenever water rises in the river we used to get holiday.

We had a fairly big ground shared by Boys and Girls schools. The ground was in the same condition now as it was at that time. It was a fine example of gender harmony. I was in the Cricket, Football and Kabaddi team during this time. This is where I studied cycling using my friend's BSA SLR cycle. I used to rent cycle in the nearby shop and roam around here during weekends.

After finishing 10th, I studied Pre-degree course (10+2 at school was introduced later) at Mahatma Gandhi College, Trivandrum.  I will save that for another post.

Sankara Subbaiyer Lower Primary School, Karamana where my brothers had their primary education.

Trivandrum Trip Part I - Valiathura

It is long time since I spent time this long in Trivandrum. It is such a wonderful place as it brings in lot of my good memories during childhood. I re-visited many places in Trivandrum during last month to revitalize my memory and take some good photographs. This post is part of a series of articles I would be writing about Trivandrum.

Trivandrum or Thiruvananthapuram (as it is called in Malayalam - തിരുവനന്തപുരം) is located on the west coast of India near the extreme south of the mainland spreading over a total of 2,192sq.km. This capital of the state of Kerala is a beautiful seaside city built on seven hills. Trivandrum is an ancient city with tradition dating back to 1000 BC. The city became the capital of Raja (King) of Travancore in 1750. The city gets its name from the word, Thiru-anantha-puram, meaning the city of Anantha or the abode of the sacred Serpent Anantha on which Lord Vishnu, the preserver of the Hindu trinity, reclines. More on the city can be found on wikipedia link on Trivandrum.

When you are writing about Trivandrum, you have to start with Sri Padmanabha Swamy Temple in the heart of the city. The temple is the reason for the city's name. I will write about the temple in a subsequent post. This post is about my trip to Valiathura. Valiathura is a beach side in Trivandrum adjacent to the famous Shangumugham beach.

On a Sunday morning I started out with my Brother on his bike. There was two reasons for the outing. To buy fish and to take some pictures. We went to the Valiathura beach which is around 15 min drive from my place at Karamana. On reaching Valiathura, we went straight to the Valiathura Pier to take some photos. This is a very old harbor no more under active use. The locals use the pier for fishing and the pier itself is in a precarious condition due to not maintaining.

Valiathura Pier

You can see the old harbor office nearby and also a warehouse used to store goods when the harbor was active. We were told that the warehouse is partly used and is in a very bad conditions. A passersby mistook us for press reporters and mentioned that there are anti-social elements using this place as their hideout.

Old Harbor Office Building at Valiathura


Notice Board on the Harbor Building depicting charges to use the Pier


Abandoned Warehouse at Valiathura

We then went to the pier. It was opened in 1956 by the P.S. Rau the then adviser to the King of Travancore (called Rajpramukh after independence). The pier goes deep into the sea and it provides magnificent view of the Indian ocean from within the sea.

Pier in damaged condition

When we walked on the pier we could see the destruction of the structure due to age. Many of the side walls were broken and some side steps were totally destructed with a slabs broken.


You can see old railway tracks on the pier used to transport goods coming through ships. We found many localites doing fishing here. The view from above the pier was excellent and I could take some good pictures.

Boat in the sea taken from the Pier


Fishermen on motor boat


Valiathura Beach as viewed from the Pier

After taking some pictures we got down from the pier and went underneath it. The view from below the pier is excellent with multiple columns of the pier visible in concentric squares.

View from under the Pier

If you go to Shangumugham or Valiathura in the morning, you will be able to see the fishermen catching fishes from the sea. There were a group of fishermen pulling their catch to shore. They go in boats to deep sea and put the large nets in the sea. The net is then pulled to the shore by groups of fishermen. There will be very long rope tied on both sides of the net and two groups of people pull them from the shore.

Group of men pulling the fish net

If you are interested, you can also join the fishermen to pull the net. We both also got into the job and helped them pull the net. You will be able to experience the effort taken to catch the fish. Some times if they are not lucky, after so much effort there will be very less fish in the net. Or sometime only very small fishes will be there.

Fishes inside the net

The net which we pulled to the shore had the same fate. There were only very small fishes in the net and the fishermen were very disappointed to see their effort yielding minimal result.


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Releated News: http://www.hindu.com/2008/07/03/stories/2008070361260300.htm