ANAYUTTU

ANAYUTTU


The only thing regularly we were doing after our shifting to Palakkad was walking as in Johnie Walker or the ad of Idea mobile, walk and talk. And during one of these walks; we read a poster announcing that there is going to be an Anayuttu at Valiapadam Subramania Swamy Temple. Anayuttu means feeding elephants. As both of us were fond of elephants we decided to watch the fun and waited for 9th of August for this.
The day dawned as usual and we got up and prepared for our walk. The Valiapadam temple is on our radar of daily walk and as we reached there we were stunned to see the activities there. Six elephants were already there and the best sight was that of Kannan ,the baby elephant having his bath. He was just lying down as the mahouts were rubbing him after water being poured from an hose in an house near the temple.
After we saw it getting up ,we walked little further and found another three giant tuskers parked in a compound of an house .
We decided enough of walk and came back home ,had our bath, finished b/fast and proceeded to the temple to watch the fun. By the time we reached, there were 13 giant sized elephants standing face to face and in between we could walk and feast our eyes watching the elephants. I was curious to know the names and was able to find out and it was as follows
1. Kannan 6 year small fellow with mischievous eyes smallest of them all
2. Ganesh

3. Rajasekharan
4. Vignesh.
5. Ramankutty

6. Kesavan I
7. Kesavan II
8. Gopalan
9. Padbanadhan
10. Manamadhavan
11. Govindan
12. Sunderasan and
13. Ramachandran

As I write all these names it looks like saying achuthaya namah saying the various paryayams of Vishnu and Ganesh. Uma adds saying that some are my colleagues name in HPCL.
There was quite a nice crowd now in the temple. The priest of the temple came and did the Gaja Puja to all the elephants and then with the little fellow ,Kannan leading the elephants were taken as a procession to the famous Mandakkara temple in Kalpathy, We reached and watched the fun sitting in Uma’s father’s house in Kalpathy. After about 15 mts of puja done on Kannan at this temple by the priest we started our journey back to the Valiapadam temple for the Anayuuttu. It was really cute to see Kannan standing in front of the main temple and allowing the others to do the puja . A nice pottu was put on its big forehead.
With panchavadyam in frontand elephants following, we walked back to the temple.
We reached this temple and the elephants were back in their old position standing face to face. Now we were ready to start the feed. As we were standing we could see big vessels full of rice balls being carried by volunteers and kept in front of each elephant. The main priest after some puja gave the first piece to the giant elephant and then it was pandemonium. Every body wanted to give food to these magnificent animals. I managed to pick up one big ball and managed to put it in Keasavan ‘s mouth. I asked Uma to do it and she was scared. Forcing her she picked up one piece of rice cake and promptly put it down . But I was proud when she picked up another and put it in the elephant’s mouth.
We were quite thrilled and walked back home satisfied for having seen such a spectacular sight.

We have taken some photos which can be viewed