Thrikkarthika at Perunnai

We had celebrated the 'Karthika vilakku' at my home town. Children with great enthusiasam made the event more special and memorable. My home is very near to the Subrahmanya swami temple at Perunna. Here the 10 day festival starts with the Kathika vilakku. Every home will light up with lights and traditional clay pots. I feel so proud to be there to see a place celebrate the event with such a spirit.

Every celebration have a cleaning part. Roads have first session of cleaning. This time I had seen a machine to remove the weeds from the sides of the road. Earlier cleaning will start one week before karthika. Now the machine had replaced that phase of cleaning also. The next part of cleaning in houses every one will clean the yard and the hedges. There will be stand to place the earthen pots. This stand will be made by banana stem. We can see neighbours cleaning the road and firing the leaves with great enthusiasm. We can see fumes from every corner of the place which indicate the cleaning is on progress. Whenever the thought of Karithika evoke in my mind this fumes and the lighter moments with my nice neighbours have a role on that frame. Then comes the third phase of cleaning, lamps and vessels. 'Nilavilakku' as we call bronze lamps has a great part in this festival. There will be grand arrangement of nilavilakku in every home and in temple also.

'Kodiyettam' for utsavam is on this special day. The first picture is of payasam from the temple for the devotees on this special day. This is called 'Idichu pizhinja payasam' . This have a different taste than the usual ones.
This image is of 'Karthika puzhukku'. Its also a special of this day. Every home will prepare this Puzhukku which contain most of the local tubers like kachil, chembu, kappa and koorkka. I will try to post a detailed recipe on my food blog.

The last but not least was the lights. We had lighted that evening with lot of lights. The festival had begun there with a large flag swaying in the kodimaram.