Why everyone should go to the Chariot Festival

BY SAMPAvIE SRITHARAN

Idon’t go to the temple every day, but Ther (Chariot Festival) is one event I attend every year at my temple.

Since we came to Australia in 2004, the Sri Vakrathunda Vinayagar temple has been my family’s home for religious ceremonies and events, birthdays, weddings, and anniversaries, before and after exams (in high school I prayed to do well and now I just pray to pass in university) and generally for when things are going well in life and when they aren’t. I have seen the temple expand, surrounding buildings and structures come and go and many people enter through its doors.

But I am not a regular temple go-er. I have work, uni, a fledging social life, and other unavoidable responsibilities and commitments of adulthood.

(As a young person of colour and as one living in Australia, it is a real balancing act to navigate between two different cultures.)

And yet, for Ther, I will put off studying, switch shifts at work, and make no other plans for the day.

Ther is one of my favourite events on the highly soughtafter temple calendar.

It occurs on the penultimate day of the Mahotsavam, which is a ten-day celebration held in honour of the temple’s patron god Ganesha and with Ther as its climax. Like election day, Ther always takes place on a Saturday and this year it fell on 24 April.

The main event is the chariot procession of Lord Ganesha and the attending priests who perform rituals in honour of the god, around the exterior of the temple grounds. The chariot is pulled along by devotees, with one of the two ropes designated for women and the other for men. Everyone from babies to the elderly do their best to touch and pull the rope at least once. As the five faced-red garbed Ganesha is taken around the entire temple grounds (on the road as well!), He absorbs the negative thoughts, emotions, and bad energy from the people in the procession and surrounding area. To cool down and purify Him before he re-enters the temple, his clothes are changed to green and after he descends from the chariot and is lifted onto the shoulders of the men, water is splashed on Him and those carrying Him.

While I’m completely unqualified and unknowledgeable to comment more on the religious aspects of the day, I can say that Ther is a social event as much as it is a religious one. I’m always guaranteed to see childhood friends, old classmates from language school, family friends, people who I have seen for years but still don’t know what their names are, and recently discovered relatives connected to us via a sprawling family tree. There is also a lot to see and take in besides the socialising: the exclamations of the young men carrying the god to and from the chariot, and their grimacing as they cop an ice-cold pail of water to the face and bare chest, the women out-pulling the men in their eagerness to finally be physically involved, everyone inside the temple waiting with bated breath for the greenclothed Ganesha to emerge from behind the curtain, and everyone else releasing a sigh of relief that lunch will finally be served. It’s a real endurance test to patiently wait for the food.

In more recent years, the temple’s youth group Melbourne YUVA (of which I am a committee member), has been selling drinks, snacks and henna to fundraise for its social work and running events to allow young people to be more engaged with culture. This year saw the return of henna, our signature falooda (a rose flavoured milk drink topped with jelly) and the introduction of pani puri (basically an explosion of flavours and textures in a single mouthful), a refreshing lemon and tamarind juice kindly donated to us, and tender coconuts to drink from. All the money raised is used for community service and youth initiatives.

Our aim as a non-profit organisation is to empower the bright, passionate, and driven young minds in our community and give them a platform to make an impactful difference to those who are less fortunate through charitable activities.

Sri Vakrathunda Vinayagar temple is at1292 Mountain Hwy, The Basin VIC 3154