The epicentre of the Kalpathy Car Festival is the Sree Viswanathaswami Temple in Kalpathy. Temples in New Kalpathy, Old Kalpathy and Chathapuram joins in on simultaneous days for the celebrations. The most important days during the 10-day festival are the last three days. And on the final day there is the Rathasangamom at Sri Viswanathaswami Temple, which happens on the last day of Aippassi Month.
Let me try and give some details as we perceived the great Kalpathy Ratholsavam which today is considered second only to the Puri Rath Yatra and a great tourist attraction. Kerala tourism board also participates and you may see some foreigners astonished watching this.
The Heritage village and the surrounding are cleaned and spruced up, stalls of various items, steel vessels, bookshops (we could see Hindu, Mathrubhoomi and MalayalaManorama stalls along with Brahmana sabha Publications) soap-cheep-kannadi stalls, eating joints ( from bhel puris , popcorn to Vadais) ,ballon wallahs, peepi wallahas etc. Reminds you of your young days. We saw a stall selling mridangams ,chenda etc which we understand are made at Peruvambu. There was a stall selling the “Kalchattis”. In fact a street adjacent to the agraharam is named Kachatti theruvu . We saw vadyars moving about briskly; in fact we witnessed a modern young gentleman vadyar crash landing in a 3.5 h.p Bullet motorbike in the centre of Kalpathy Agraharam.
Each participating temple like Mandakara ganapathy and Lakhsminarayan swamy temple have everyday separate processions across the agraharam and each day it will be in different “vahanams”. We were able to see,Garuda Vahanam, Gajavahanam, Sarpavahanam , Horse vahanam etc.
During the seven days before the Ratholsvam, music festival is conducted. It is said that earlier years big names in Carnatic music participated.
14th Nov was the first day of the Theru. On this morning at 9 o clock was the the Royal marriage of Sri Viswanathaswamy with Meenakshi. We went to attend this. The crowd was too much and the place where the marriage was taking place was too small for comfortable viewing. In spite of this, we witnessed the marriage. The mamis of Kalpathy were in their elements singing Gowrikalyanam in all srutis.
After this, the deities are mounted on the chariots , this is known as Ratharohanam and the three Chariots are pulled to the centre of the agraharam, the two smaller chariots are pulled by group of persons and the biggest one is pushed by an elephant. Uma also contributed in the pushing.
The three chariots carrying the deities of Sree Viswanathaswamy Temple is taken out in procession. The first chariot is of Lord Shiva (Shri Viswanathaswamy) and Parvati. The second chariot is of Lord Ganesha (Vigneshwara) and the third is of Lord Muruga (Subrahmanya or Kartik along with his consorts). The chariots set out on Grama Pradikshinam, which is the village tour, around 10 in the morning and return by sunset.
On the second day, Lord Ganesha (Manthakara Mahaganapathy) which is the presiding deity of New Kalpahty temple is taken out on procession. As this temple was next door to Uma’s house we decided to participate in this fully, Instead of the usual morning walk we decided on seeing all the temples and we set forth in the morning .We visited all the temples and as we were too tired we decided to have b/fast at Sri.Krisnha . I had idly, Vada and Uma had Kozhakattai. We rushed back carrying some idlys for amma .As we were approaching the temple we saw the elephant Manikandan all decked up . On enquiry we were told that this elephant will visit all the participating gramams to invite people for coming and witness the Ratharohanam at the Mandakarai Ganapathy. We rushed back to the Mandakara Ganapathy temple to get a balcony seat for amma. When we reached we were told that the procession of the Vinayakar has gone to the Siva-parvathy temeple on the other side of the Puthiya Kalpathy Gramam to seek His Parents blessing before getting on to the Ratham. The deity is brought back and after some puja is put on to the Chariotes amidst chanting by the big crowd. The entire Palghat and more were there to witness this. Meanwhile in front of this huge charirot four lanes of people, both ladies and gents of all ages were qued for pulling the chariot. Both Uma and me also pulled a little. It was fun. We picked up Puliyan Chadam and Thair Chadam from Aiswarya Mess and came home.
Aiswarya mess and the hotels around are doing brisk business as there is a big group of floating population staying in the village for witnessing this. We understand that houses in the Agraharam are available for rent for this period only
On the final day, the deities of the Old Kalpathy Temple and Chathapuram Temple are taken around the respective villages on their chariots. The deity of Old Kalpathy is Lakshminarayana Perumal and that of Chathapuram is Mahaganapathy (Ganesha).
In the evening on the final day, the ‘Rathasangamom’ – the congregation of all the chariots – will take place before the Sree Viswanathaswamy Temple in Kalpathy.
