Extreme Devotion on Display as Malaysia Marks Thaipusam

Malaysian Hindu devotee Karthi Gan grimaces while tapping his feet to the beat of ritual drums as two men plunge dozens of sharp hooks into his chest and back.

The painful ritual is Karthi's way of giving thanks to the Hindu deity Muruga as part of the country's colourful annual Thaipusam festival, one of the world's most extreme displays of religious devotion.

Celebrated also in India and other areas with significant Tamil communities, the three-day festival that kicked off Thursday is marked with particular zest among Malaysian Indians.

Hordes of Hindus flock to temples across the country with offerings, many showing their fervour via extensive piercing or by bearing the elaborately decorated burdens called "kavadi" that are carried to religious sites.

Giving thanks

"I got what I asked from Lord Muruga," said Karthi, a 31-year-old engineer, who prayed during last year's festival for "a good life".

"I got a new-born baby. I got a new home," he said late Thursday night, when he and thousands of others began the slow and painful process of affixing their kavadi in the northern state of Penang.

His styrofoam kavadi structure -- a frame attached to his hips and crowned by a peacock-eye design -- was relatively light.

The piercing, however, had him feeling "a little nervous" ahead of the ritual just outside a Hindu temple, but he soon joined dozens of others who submitted to the ordeal.

Installing the kavadi, however, is merely the beginning.

In Penang, devotees then paraded barefoot for hours Friday through the streets of the state capital Georgetown, carrying kavadi that can weigh as much as 100 kilograms (220 pounds).

Participants swayed trance-like to drumbeats that had throbbed since Thursday.

Cheered on by friends and family who danced and chanted, the processions culminated in an 800-step climb to a hilltop temple for prayers.

Thaipusam commemorates the day when, according to Hindu mythology, the goddess Pavarthi gave her son Lord Muruga a lance to slay evil demons.

Bloodless process

Concentrating as he plunged skewers through a man's cheek and tongue, Segar Chelleiah, a 46-year-old lorry driver, said he helped prepare about 20 people within a few hours at one of Georgetown's many small temples.

After driving large hooks through devotees' backs, ropes attached to the hooks are pulled to stretch the skin out. The whole process is surprisingly bloodless.

"I know where to put the skewers. My grandfather taught me," Segar said, before thrusting a thick metal rod through a devotee's cheek, taking pride in not spilling a drop of blood.

He later hung 600 miniature pots of milk -- a typical ritual offering -- on an equal number of hooks embedded in the bare upper torso of another devotee who quivered and perspired under the ordeal.

Segar eschews antiseptic, saying prayer and Muruga's mercy prevent infection, along with devotees' days of strict vegetarian dieting and abstinence from sex and other vices ahead of the festival to purify the body.

More than two million of racially diverse Malaysia's 28 million people are ethnic Indian, mostly descendants of laborers brought in under British colonial rule. Most are Hindu.

Offerings to Man United

Devotees are free to choose the design of their kavadi, giving rise recently to modern themes including logos of Manchester United and other popular football clubs, along with the typical peacock feathers and colorful replicas of Muruga.

The Muslim-majority country's main advisory body on Hindu worship, Malaysia Hindu Sangam, issued guidelines for this year's festival banning such "inappropriate" kavadi as well as excessive noise.

The aim is a more "presentable" Thaipusam, its president Mohan Shan told Agence France Presse.

"Lately we see this is a big problem. It's not right in our religion," he said.

"We have to make our Hindu devotees follow the correct rituals."

Religious tension has risen in Malaysia over a number of disputes, most recently an escalating row over whether Malay-speaking Christians can use the Arabic "Allah" to refer to God.

Conservative Muslims insist only followers of Islam can use it.

But Thaipusam festivities seemed no less colorful this year.

On Thursday, a silver chariot carrying the image of Muruga was pulled through Georgetown's streets by two bulls as crowds of the faithful offered up platters of fruit while others smashed coconuts in its path, a key annual rite.

"We just want peace in our country, so we have to respect each other's religions," Krishnawani Ramakrishnan, 48, said after handing her platter to white-clad riders on the chariot as Tamil music thundered through the city.