Faith. To have faith in something, someone, an otherness that is bigger than and beyond oneself; to be contained by it, held by it; to live that sensation of indubitable, absolute surrender – what must it feel like?

When you wake up at a what some of us call ‘ungodly’ hour to witness a pooje offered to a devi at an hour that some others of us consider divine, looking forward to see if you could shed the cloaks of cynicism and skepticism we wear in our times that we sometimes mistake for rationale, a sense of anticipation runs down your spine. That’s the thing about quiet, dark hours, perhaps – the silence and the nightness of them so sincere that no mask we consciously or unconsciously wear during the day means anything anyway.

That singular misery and miracle that one cannot lie to oneself!

That… that was only the beginning of the mind going in circles on the first morning of the Kavadi Bhagavati temple festival in Kodagu, Karnataka.

To say the Kodava world is a unique one in the vast array of cultures within Karnataka is to say, say Earth revolves around the Sun – it is that simple and that colossal a fact as that. You could hoard facts about the Kavadi Bhagavati temple festival as one of their annual festivals to worship and celebrate a popular local goddess Bhagavati or Bhadrakali, who is worshipped in every village.

You could say it is a festival during which, in the wee hours of morning and evening, the whole village gathers while assigned priests will carry their beloved goddess and god — ‘Utsava Murthy’s (procession idols) — on their heads and circumambulate the temples several times while the whole village watches, and the deities sit snugly in beautifully decorated structures.

You could say it is a festival during which the Kodavas make a human chain so that god Aiyappa does not leave them and run away, according to a local mythological story. You could also say it is a festival during which, like most other festivals, devotees seek blessings for well-being and resolve spiritual debts, but one for which people in every household return to their roots with a sense of belonging even if life has taken them to distant places.

Then again, these are facts you can gather from any Kodava who proudly celebrates the festival or from a priest who performs the rituals. What you will witness first-hand is only something you can call a lived experience if you visit Kodagu in the flesh.

There is something extraordinarily humbling to see a whole population gathering with an intention and together bow down before something they believe is more important than them, more significant than our fragile individual egos and even us humans in the collective sense. It does not matter if one is pious or a chest-thumping atheist or a bitter cynic or a disillusioned agnostic, or any of these without the preceding adjectives here. There is an inherent energy that can affect you only if you dare shed your own ego, your own skepticism. After all, what is the harm in exploding oneself to an abstract entity anyway?

That is what happens when you see a whole Kodava village, dressed beautifully in their traditional attire, gathering and looking at a goddess and a god being ceremonially carried around the temples they are sheltered in. When the priests carrying them dance perfectly in rhythm, to the goosebumps-inducing percussion and trumpets and other local, historical music instruments. It is as if the priests in question are possessed by something other than their own self, held by an energy that is impossible to miss and stirring to watch.

In those few hours of everyone forgetting the sense of self, in the suspension of our egos, with the vibrant colours, the amber light of the lamps, the resounding music and watching the priests who carry that impossible weight of the procession idols and still dance like nobody’s business, in those few hours, you might rethink some stubborn beliefs and move towards that more flexible and the maddening allure of something more reassuring – faith.

Faith that actually enables hundreds of people to lead their everyday life arguably more in peace than a skeptic. Not the dogmatic kind that could lead to catastrophic human tragedies but faith that keeps big populations, en masse, cordial and polite with and to one another or at its best even kind and altruistic towards one another. The kind of faith that visits the thresholds of our most inner being only with the bravery a sort of self-abandon brings. Kavadi Bhagawati temple festival is one such occurrence that can move you to deliberate on these bigger questions with perhaps hilariously and wonderfully simplest of answers.

Now, on a lighter vein, like any major temple that offers free food, let’s not forget the delicious food given away as a blessing at the end of each session of worship! Just how delectable temple food is, is something you know if you know!

So all this contemplation is to cajole you to visit Kodagu and to place such collective human experiences on the cards so you experience a place and its people in a visceral way, in ways that truly enrich our lives as explorers, as storyseekers, and as seekers of beauty and truth.

Sourabha Rao

Sourabha Rao is a professional writer, poet, translator, former freelance columnist and voiceover artist, with literary proficiency in English and Kannada. She deeply cares about producing stories primarily on nature and wildlife, social issues, history and art. She strives to write truthfully and creatively in an earnest attempt to create content that educates and entertains, has impact, and mobilises positive social change. She has written op-eds and photo-stories for leading Kannada and English newspapers, and has collaborated with filmmakers in wildlife conservation and water conservation. Sourabha lives in Bengaluru, while a big chunk of her heart has stayed back in Mysuru, her forever-muse.

Axing Arrogances

Sourabha Rao