Vel Vel is a festival of offering sacrifice to the feet of deity. This Vel Vel Festival is very much similar to Thaipusam; a festival celebrated by the Tamil and Malayali communities around the world in many ways.
Here in Bandel, Hooghly devotees do ceremonial sacrifice and offering practice to the Lord Sri Mutthu Mariamma or Maata Olaichandi or Maa Shitala for achieving holy grace. Every year during the month April “Vel Vel” is being organized by Sri Mutthu Mariamma Puja Committee (Address : Balikata, Bandel, Hooghly, West Bengal, India). Madrasi people of this local area originated from southern part of India are engaged in this traditional festival.
What are the rituals ?
People from every corner of this local area forming a procession team gathers at Olaichonditala (5 minutes walking distance from Naldanga More on Grand Trunk Road, Bandel.) with chariot decorated in their own style with their deity in it.
They also carry their tools like thin spear made of steel almost 10 feet long.In every team there are one or more people who act as key devotee. They take bathe in the nearby pond which is holy as they believe. Main devotee taking blessings in Olaichandimata Mandir prepare for sacrifice and procession with the help of other team members. They pierce the spear through mouth and attach Trishul (bengali term) shape on the both end, not only that, they also hook on the flesh of their back and connect the rope of the chariot where their deity exists and keeps puling the chariot on.
Completing all the rituals, procession team departs Olaichandi Tala and head towards another temple named Balikata Shitala Mandir through the pilgrimage route which is more than 3kms in distance.
While walking in the procession they perform some quick dance steps and other acts to make the road show engaging. Viewers surrounded by the processing route visualize the road show. Some of the viewers take green coconut water to wash the feet of the projected devotee.
They keeps on shouting “Vel, Vel” all through the procession. Utterance of Vel, Vel generates mental energy to them and keeps them engaging. Through the whole event it is also experienced that many people do unusual dance steps and bizarre acts like jumps, roll on being transed by the god and happens suddenly.
Beliefs / Objectives!
As per their belief they sacrifice themselves take physical burdens to implore their deity for assistance, usually on behalf of a kin who is in need of healing, or as a means of balancing a spiritual debt to god.
Extra Mentions :
- This year (in 2019) Vel Vel festival Held on 6th of April, 2019 (Saturday).
- Place of Occurrence : Bandel, Hooghly, Wes Bengal, India.
- Photographic Scopes are available but you need to be very tricky when clicking photos as the place becomes congested due to narrow space and too much presence of photographers are the disadvantages while taking photographs.
- All photographs in this post taken during festival by me using my phone camera.
References :
■ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vel
■ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thaipusam
■ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kavadi_Aattam
Lets Shout Vel Vel…!