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London Sri Murugan Chariot Festival – 2009

London Sri Murugan Chariot Festival: On Sunday 16th August 2009 I travelled to Manor Park in East Ham to photograph this annual festival. A small temple was consecrated here in 1984 but it was rebuilt in 2005 with a 50ft tall marble temple tower in Dravidian style and claimed to be the largest South Indian Hindu temple in Europe. Murugan is the patron deity of the Tamil language and the Hindu god of war. He is generally described as the son of the deities Shiva and Parvati and the brother of Ganesha.

Much of the description below is based on the account I wrote on My London Diary in 2009.

The chariot festival here in which Hindu deities are carried around the streets of East Ham was certainly on a grand scale, with the chariot pulled by people followed by a crowd of perhaps 5000 people, members of London’s Tamil community.

Along the route men and women stood in front of their homes and businesses with plates or baskets of fruit to hand to the temple priests riding on the chariot or walking in front for blessings by the Goddess; metal trays bearing fruits were returned bearing a flame and the families held out their hands to feel the warmth.

The chariot had two finely painted prancing horses at its front but was pulled by two ropes, on the right by women and on the left by men, with a large mixed crowd of followers behind. Those on the ropes and between them and many others walked barefoot through the streets, but many others kept their shoes on – and so did I, at least for most of the event.

*The Goddess Gayatri, mother of the Vedas*

The chariot was too tall to pass unaided under some of the telephone wires on the streets and was accompnied by attendants with a long pole with a beam across its top to lift up the wires while the chariot passed beneath.

A group of musicians walked in front of the chariot stopping occasionally to play.

Men walking with the chariot carried short heavy knives which were used to halve the coconuts offered for blessing, and at several places along the route groups of men stood and threw large numbers of coconuts onto the road to smash.

Things began to get a little frenzied as the chariot came back in sight of the temple after around four hours going around the street, with people crowding around anxious to have their plates and bowls of fruit blessed.

Eventually the chariot turned into the large temple yard. I followed it in there and took a few more pictures. There was a very long queue for food and I left for home.

I put many of the pictures I took onto My London Diary and it was very hard to choose which to put in this post. You can see the others at London Sri Murugan Chariot Festival.

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Tamil Festival & Brentford Walk – 2010

Tamil Festival & Brentford Walk: On the morning of Sunday 8th August 2010 I photographed the annual Chariot Festival from the Tamil Hindu Temple in West Ealing and in the afternoon went for a walk in Brentford.

Tamil Chariot Festival in West Ealing

Tamil Festival & Brentford Walk - 2010 — *Men wait with coconuts outside the temple, ready to roll along the road*

The annual Chariot Festival from the Tamil Shri Kanagathurkkai Amman (Hindu) Temple at a former chapel in West Ealing comes close to the end of their Mahotsavam festival which lasts for around four weeks each year.

In it a represtentation of the Temple’s main goddess Amman (Tamil for Mother) and priests are dragged around the streets on a large chariot pulled by men and women on long ropes.

Behind them around 50 men naked from the waist up laid down on the street holding a coconut in front of them and rolled their bodies along the street for the half mile or so of the route. Men and women came and scattered Vibuthi (Holy Ash) on them. Following them were women who prostrated themselves to the ground every few steps.

From the Temple in Chapel Street the procession, led by a smaller chariot made its way along Uxbridge Road in the bus lane. People crowded around the chariot holding bowls of coconut and fruits (archanai thattu) as ritual offerings (puja) to be blessed by a temple priest.

To photograph the event I had – like those taking part – removed my shoes and my feet were soon soaked in coconut milk from the many cut open or smashed on the ground. Coconuts play an important role in many Hindu rituals and are a major product of the Tamil areas of India and Sri Lanka and many sacks of them were broken in the festival.

Further back in the procession were male dancers, some with elaborate tiered towers above their heads. Others had heavy wooden frames decorated with flowers and peacock feathers, representing the weight of the sins of the world that the gods have to carry; they had ropes attached to their backs by a handful of large hooks through their flesh. They turned and twisted violently as if to escape from the ropes, held by another man.

Women walked with flaming bowls of camphor which burns with a fairly cool flame and leaves no residue with others behind them carrying jugs on their heads.

The festival raises funds for various educational projects for children that the temple sponsors in northern Sri Lanka and other charitable projects in Sri Lanka devastated by the civil war and had sent more then £1.3 million in the previous ten years.

I left the festival, dried my feet as best I could, put on my socks and shoes and caught at bus to Brentford.

Many more pictures on My London Diary at Tamil Chariot Festival in Ealing.

Brentford

*Overflow from the canal takes the River Brent to the Thames*

When I was young and lived not far away Brentford was an important canal port, the junction of the Grand Union Canal (also here the River Brent) with the River Thames. The docks by the Thames were now a private housing estate and by 2010 almost all of the British Waterways sheds had gone, replaced by blocks of flats.

*Past the recent moorings were the last remaining loading sheds*

But the canal and the locks are still there, along with the small docks and some of the boat repair businesses. Little is visible from the High Street except where it goes over the canal, but despite extensive redevelopment in the 1990s – and more going on now – it remains an interesting area to walk around.

*From the footbridge over the Brentford gauging locks*

I’d photographed a little in the area back before much redevelopment took place, and more extensively in the 1990s. On line you can see some pictures from 2003 when some of the more recent development was starting. And I’ve returned a few times since this walk in 2010 and you can find more pictures if you search on My London Diary.

*Thames Lock, connecting the canal system to the River Thames*

As I noted in 2010, “Much of the walk that I took is now a part of the Thames Path, though it isn’t always well signposted, and some of the more interesting parts are a short detour away.”

More pictures from my short walk around Brentford on My London Diary.

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All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
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Wimbledon Chariot Festival – 2010

Wimbledon Chariot Festival: On Wednesday 18th August 2010 I went to Wimbledon to photograph one of London’s more colourful annual festivals, the procession by the Tamil community from the Shree Ganapathy Hindu Temple around their local streets.

The temple was opened here in Effra Road, in a building that had been built as a mission hall by Trinity Presbyterian Church, a ‘Scottish Church’ founded in Wimbledon in 1883.

In 1887 they had set up a mission Sunday School in South Wimbledon and numbers grew so they built St Cuthbert’s Hall on Effra Street in the mid 1890s. Around 194 this became St Cuthbert’s District Church. On my 2010 post I wrongly called it Anglican rather than Presbyterian.

The Church was still a party of Trinity when falling membership led to the decision in 1956 to sell the building to the Sir Cyril Black Trust, who renamed it Churchill Hall. Black, who died in 1991, was MP for Wimbledon from 1950 to his retirement 1970 and was a strict Baptist, known for his far right views and opposition to liberal reforms, but strongly supportive to the local community and a founder of the Wimbledon Community Association.

The hall in 1981 became the Shree Ganapathy Hindu Temple and its church hall the Sai Mandir prayer hall.

As I noted in 2010, “As well as traditional temple activities for its Tamil community, the temple has a “more holistic approach to providing for the spiritual, moral and emotional needs of our devotees” with various talks, classes and health seminars. Together with the Sai Mandir it also takes part in a wide range of community projects in the London Borough of Merton and more widely, including meals on wheels, food for the homeless, and conservation work as well as welcoming local children, students, teachers and others to come and learn about Hinduism. In recent years it has also worked to support Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka.“

On My London Diary as well as the many pictures there is quite a long introduction about the event which involved a procession around the area with statues of three of the Temple deities, two on chariots and one on a palanquin.

The chariots are pulled by crowds of worshippers, there are musicians, women with bowls of flaming camphor and huge numbers of coconuts, many of which were flung onto rocks in large wooden boxes and shatter, while others ricochet dangerously. All of us were soon covered in coconut milk.

Men stripped to the waist roll along the street holding coconuts in front of them. People present baskets of fruit and coconuts to the Temple priest on the chariot to be blessed and the priest distributes flower petals and other gifts.

It took a couple of hours for the procession to travel what would have been at most a ten minute walk, after which celebrations were to continue inside the Temple

I and my colleague who was also photographing the event were made very welcome at the festival and invited to continue inside and eat a meal, but we had to leave. I’ve not returned as I felt my coverage in 2010 had probably covered the event sufficiently and I would only been repeating myself. This year, 2024, the festival was on Sunday 11 Aug 2024.

Much more on My London Diary at Wimbledon Chariot Festival, where there is also an account of another Tamil Chariot Festival in Ealing.

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All photographs on this page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
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Highgate Hill Murugan Chariot Festival – 2010

Highgate Hill Murugan Chariot Festival: Back in the first decade of this century my work covered a wider range of cultural events than now, including many religious events on the streets of London. The 2010 election which put into power a Tory-led government dedicated to making the poor poorer and themselves and their friends richer changed that for me, leading to 14 years dominated by covering protests – something which had only been one strand of my work before. I’m currently not sure if our recent election will change my work which for the last months has been completely dominated by Palestine.

I didn’t entirely stop photographing religious festivals and on Sunday 10th July 2011 went to Highgate where the annual Highgate Hill Murugan Chariot Festival was taking place.

Here I’ll copy what I wrote about it in 2011 with a few of the many pictures I made at the event. You can see more pictures on My London Diary.

Murugan is a popular Hindu God in Tamil areas and the patronal god of the Tamil homeland Tamil Nadu. As God of war Murugan with six heads has a divine lance and other weapons and rides a peacock.

In the Chariot Festival people make offerings to Murugan of baskets of fruits, particularly coconuts, which are blessed and returned.

Men on one side and women on the other pull on the long ropes to take the chariot around the neighbourhood, while a conch shell gives an audible warning of its movement; other women carry kavadi (burdens) offered to Murugan, chanting and carrying of pots, possibly of coconut milk on their heads.

Some men roll half-naked along the ground behind the chariot holding coconuts. People sweep the road to make their progress less painful, and others anoint them with sacred ashes.

Highgate Hill Murugan Temple is one of the oldest and most famous in the UK, but the celebrations here seemed to be a little more restrained than those I’ve photographed at some other London Murugan temples.

Perhaps surprisingly, in Sri Lanka Murugan is also revered by Sinhalese Buddhists.

On the ‘History‘ page of the Highgatehill Murugan Temple web site you can read how the Hindu association of Great Britain was founded in London on 23rd October 1966, and in 1977 was able to buy a spacious freehold property at 200A, Archway Road, Highgate Hill. Here they built the Temple which includes a library, two Concert Halls, a prayer hall and a Priest’s flat which was opened in 1979, with a three storey Temple added a few years later. It was the first Sri Llankan Hindu Temple in the UK.

More Pictures: Highgate Hill Murugan Chariot Festival

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Tamil Chariot Festival – Ealing 2010

Tamil Chariot Festival: Last Sunday I briefly photographed for another time London’s best-known chariot festival, the Hare Krishna Rathayatra festival where devotees pull a giant chariot from Hyde Park to a festival in Trafalgar Square. But this is only one of a number of Hindu chariot festivals in London and on 8th August 2010 I took off my shoes to photograph a rather different event in West Ealing. Rather than describe it again I’ll reprint here what I wrote on My London Diary in 2010, though there are many more pictures attached to the original.

Tamil Chariot Festival in Ealing – West Ealing, London. 8 August 2010

Several thousands attended the annual Chariot Festival from the Tamil Hindu Temple in West Ealing this morning, a colourful event in the streets around the temple. The celebration at the Shri Kanagathurkkai Amman (Hindu) Temple in a former chapel in West Ealing comes close to the end of their Mahotsavam festival which lasts for around four weeks each year.

A representation of the temple’s main goddess (Amman is Tamil for Mother) is placed on a chariot with temple priests and dragged around the streets by men and women pulling on large ropes.

Behind the chariot come around 50 men, naked from the waist up and each holding a coconut in front of them with both hands. They roll their bodies along the street for the half mile or so of the route, and behind them are a group of women who prostrate themselves to the ground every few steps. Men and women come and scatter Vibuthi (Holy Ash) on them.

The chariot, preceded by a smaller chariot, was dragged up Chapel Street to the main Uxbridge Road, where the bus lane was reserved for the procession. Once it had moved off the main road, people crowded up to the chariot, holding bowls of coconut and fruits (archanai thattu) as ritual offerings (puja) to be blessed by a temple priest.

Coconuts are a major product of the Tamil areas of India and Sri Lanka and play an important part in many Hindu rituals. Many are cut open or smashed on the ground during the festival, and at times my feet (like those taking part I was not wearing shoes) were soaked in coconut milk.

As I left the festival when the procession had travelled around halfway along its route I passed a group of men bringing more sacks of them to be broken.

A few yards down the road was the rest of the procession, including a number of women with flaming bowls of camphor (it burns with a fairly cool flame and leaves no residue – but at least one steward was standing by with a dry powder fire extinguisher in case flames got out of hand) and a larger group of women carrying jugs on their head.

In front of them were a number of male dancers, some with elaborate tiered towers above their heads. Others had heavy wooden frames decorated with flowers and peacock feathers, representing the weight of the sins of the world that the gods have to carry; they were held by ropes by another man, and the ropes were attached to their backs by a handful of large hooks through their flesh, many turned and twisted violently as if to escape.

The proceeds from the sale in the temple of the ‘archani thattu‘ on the festival day go to the various educational projects for children that the temple sponsors in northern Sri Lanka, devastated by the civil war there. The temple also supports other charitable projects in Sri Lanka, and in the last ten years has sent more the £1.3 million to them.

Many more pictures on My London Diary at Tamil Chariot Festival in Ealing.