On a Sunday evening in August we were driving slowly and without direction in an unfamiliar neighborhood, an activity we like to engage in when time permits, something that we call 'research' in pursuit of glimpses of Malaysian life outside our (pretty tame) everyday experience and hidden, as-yet undiscovered Malaysian treats. This day we were in Bangsar - not the part of Bangsar that the Lonely Planet guide describes as a center of 'stylish, innovative restaurants and lots of foreigner-friendly pubs,' but the section behind and to the north of the Bangsar LRT station, a neighborhood that's home mostly to Malaysians of Indian descent.
We stopped at a row of stalls selling fruit, fresh milk and yogurt, and incense and other devotional objects. The vendor I purchased a few bags of yogurt from pointed out the small Hindu temple behind her, and told me that a few days ago it had staged its annual fire-walking ceremony. Dave, meanwhile, was photographing (with permission) a woman and a girl bedecked in gorgeous saris of bright purple, orange, and gold.
'You missed the fire-walking, but in two weeks there will be a procession from here, five kilometers to Mariamman Temple in Chinatown,' my yogurt supplier told me.
Turning to Dave, she added, 'Hundreds of women will take part, and they'll all be dresssed in red. It will be beautiful! If you like to take pictures, you must come.'
And so we did.
Weekends are for sleeping in, if only for an extra hour, but on August 13th the prospect of witnessing the procession start to finish pushes us out of bed and into the car by six. It's still dark and the streets are Sunday sleepy, but it's another story in Bangsar. As we park the car and then walk the three or so blocks to Sri Nageswari Amman Aalayam Temple on Jalan Lengkok Abdullah, we pass restaurants already open, serving tea and sweets, and join the crowds streaming up the block towards the temple.
Inside the compound, at the front of a long grassy field, tables laid end-to-end are covered with hundreds and hundreds of new sembu - small silver jugs. The sembu have been purified with a wash of turmeric water and blessed with pottu - a small red dot. They will be filled with fresh milk and carried by the devotees, on their heads, during the procession. Each sembu is tied with a garland of neem leaves, an important ingredient in ayurvedic healing and, I'm told, especially loved by the goddess honored by this Aanmeega Paalkudam Oorvalam (procession).
In the hour or so leading up to the start of the procession devotees, dressed in sari or salwar kameez (tunic top and loose trousers) all shades of red, file into the temple for to be blessed and and emerge wearing neem leaf belts at their waists and garlands of jasmine flowers in their hair. Chants, recitations, and shouts are broadcast over the temple's loudspeakers, competing with the music from a drum and a high-pitched horn.
The women wear red to symbolize mankind's unity, the blood that flows in everyone. According to a pamphlet supplied by the temple, the procession is aimed at 'upliftment of women and their role in the family, in society, and their involvement in spiritualism ... when women engage in spriritualism the distractive and negative aspects of society are reduced.' It's not surprising, then, that the procession will include a mature cow and a teenage (female) calf, which in India symbolize fertility and nurturing.
When the flow of devotees entering the temple thins to a trickle, the drum beat quickens, and cow and calf are led out of the temple and into the yard in front, where they are sprinkled with flower petals and covered, for a few minutes, with white cloths. The animals have been blessed with red pottu on their foreheads; red and yellow powder is scattered over their ribs and flanks. The calf is skittish and shies from attention but the cow takes it all in stride, standing calmly as a garland of flowers is placed around her neck and a white scarf wound between her yellow powder-dusted horns.
As the women move from temple area to field, where they'll assemble before collecting their sembu of milk, they stop to gently touch the cow and the calf, sometimes pinching a bit of red or yellow powder from the animals' bodies and putting it to their foreheads. Some devotees walk, hands clasped in front of their faces, clockwise around and around the cow, then run their right hands down its tail and then touch their faces, and touch the cow's flank and then their own hearts.
Once all the devotees have been blessed and are standing waiting, facing the rows and rows of milk jars, the temple's leader appears, chanting 'Om-Shakthi' ('om' is an important Hindu mantra; 'Shakti' the goddess as mother and creator). Proceeding him are drum and horn and ten or so devotees carrying offerings - fruit, flowers, green plants, containers of smoking coconut husks, a flaming oil lamp, pots of milk and bunches of neem leaves. He walks around the tables, blessing the milk with shakes of his neem bunch, and then does the same to the women, who take up his 'Om-Shakti' chant.
Once blessings are completed the women quickly file past the tables, collecting their sembu.
Some stop to tie a piece of yellow or red cloth over the mouth of the sembu; some cover it with neem leaves. Outside the temple grounds, the devotees lift the pots to their heads and begin the five kilometer walk -barefoot - to Mariamman Temple. They'll chant 'Om-Shakti' as they carry the milk to its destination, where it will be used in Abigshegamm, the bathing of Mariamman's central deity.
By this time it's 7:30am or so, and the sun is rising fast in a cloudless sky. Led by temple leaders and the cows and their 'handlers', the procession winds down Jalan Bangsar, turning right before Sentral Station to Jalan Tun Sambanthan, a usually busy thoroughfare that runs along the edge of Brickfields (one of KL's 'Little Indias'). Police stationed along the way keep buses and cars from menacing the devotees and, at the same time, remind the processioners to leave one lane open for traffic.
In Chinatown, the procession turns right up Jalan Tun H.S. Lee (also known as Jalan Bandar) towards the temple. Just before the procession is within spitting distance of Mariamman, men with buckets of yellow turmeric water wash down the road, purifying it.
As the cows approach, they're doused as well. Even the devotees don't escape a drenching.
Sri Maha Mariamman Temple is Kuala Lumpur's oldest, founded in 1873. The existing structure (the temple was originally sited near the city's railway station) dates to the mid-sixties. The temple houses the Silver Chariot, which plays a central part in the famous Thaipusam procession to the Batu Caves.
At the temple's gopuram (gateway), a towering structure covered with the images of animals and deities, cow and calf are washed with milk and blessed with the smoke from an oil lamp before being led inside.
The processioners follow, still carrying their milk, and perform a parkrama (clockwise circumnambulation) around the center of the temple, which houses its main deity.
Stopping at the temple's upper left and right corners to perform pooja (prayers) before the minor deities housed there, they reassemble at the lower right corner, waiting to deliver their sembu of milk.
By now the devotees, who number in the hundreds, have walked five kilometers, in rapidly rising temperatures, with no refreshment. They're packed tightly into a corner of the temple that will soon receive direct sun. Most are clearly exhausted, and will wait up to two hours to offer their sembu.
Some devotees pass the time by whispering with the women standing around them. Some chant 'Om-Shakti' to themselves, while others shout it out loud.
Some processioners point, dance, and sing with their eyes closed, as if in a trance.
Throughout it all the cow, still a focus of attention as devotees who've been relieved of their sembu wander over to touch and pet it, maintains its quiet composure.
Finally, three hours or so after the procession has started, the last devotee passes her sembu to those performing the Abishegamm. In the temple's garbhagriha (inner shrine), out of view of most of the attendee's, the milk is poured over the deity. Horn and drum call all to attention, and Mariamman's guru emerges and calls an end to prayers. Some devotees collect styrofoam containers of prasatham - food offered to the deity and then served, free of charge, to worshippers - and sit down on the steps of the temple to eat. Others file out of the temple into a hot, late Sunday morning.
Note: Procession attendees told us that July and August are particularly active times for Indian temples, so if you're interested and happen to be travelling in Malaysia during those months, stop in at any Indian temple and see what they've got planned. Many of the processions, pooja, and other ceremonies are not publicized outside the temple community, but our experience tells us that visitors are welcome (though cameras might not always be).