ATTUKAL PONGALA

Tomorrow, yet another mass hysteria
in my home town, induced by saffron
clad fanatics, a million women take the
streets and burn mud pots filled with
nivedyams of sharkara payasam; amidst the
cacophony of conch shells and nadaswarams,
the holy fire is passed on from the sanctum
sanctorum of the temple, down the roads to
kilometres and kilometres of dazed women,
waiting with misplaced devotion in scorching
sun, a drama reminiscent of some pre-historic
tribal ritual, while this mother of all pongalas
helps sow divisive seeds of fundamentalism in
the fragile minds of a secular nation’s citizens!
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21/02/08                                      R Jayachandran