More than five centuries old, Karaga is the oldest festival to be celebrated in the city.
Kolkata has its Durga Puja and Mumbai its Ganpati — festivals when the entire city seems to spill over onto the streets in festive fervour. In Bangalore the festival that sees a similar frenzy is Karaga.
This year, too, the festival was celebrated with customary fervour; the all-night procession that began on the night of April 18 and concluded the next morning was accompanied by drum beats, and greeted with ritual cries of dik-dhi and “Govinda” from the largely-male crowds of devotees who lined its route through the centre of the city.
The roots of the Karaga festival go back five centuries, say historians, making it one of the oldest festivals in the state. The Tigala community takes central part in the rituals which are dedicated to Draupadi, who is worshipped as the ideal woman and the spirit of Shakti. The devi, says C Narayanaswamy, the festival’s organising secretary, set up an army of soldiers called the Veerakumaras, who defeated the asuras.
N Lakshmana, a trustee of the Dharmaraya Swamy temple in Ulsoorpet from where the procession begins, says, “When the Veerakumaras asked the devi to stay back, she promised she would come back every year on the first full moon of the first month of the Hindu calendar.”
These Veerakumaras are recruited before the festival every year and accompany the karaga bare-chested, wearing dhotis and brandishing swords. There are around 5,000 Veerakumaras, of whom over 3,800 participated this year, says Narayanaswamy.
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The Karaga refers to a pot on which is placed a floral cone. It is this pot, symbolic of the goddess Draupadi, that is taken in the procession, with devotees worshipping it all along the designated route from Tigalara Peytey to Cubbonpet, Ganigarapet, Avenue Road, Akkipet, round Balepet, Kilari Road and Nagarthpet.
At the Dharmaraya Swamy temple devotional hymns are sung and mythological stories narrated by the large number of people who wait for the Karaga’s return. Throughout the festival, rice mixed with spices is offered to people free of cost.
The Karaga pot is made two days before the procession from the sediment of the Sampangiramnagar tank. It is installed in a mandapa on the banks of the tank before being taken to the temple. During the procession it is carried by a male devotee who takes on the persona of Draupadi by donning his wife’s mangalsutra and bangles. His wife, in the meantime, is deemed a widow, and is not allowed to see him or the Karaga until the end of the festival.
The other interesting thing about the festival is its secular nature. Just before sunrise, the Karaga procession traditionally stops before the Dargah-e-Shariff of Hazrat Tawakal Mastan, an 18th century Muslim saint. Legend has it that Mastan fell down and hurt himself as he rushed to watch the Karaga procession. The temple priests applied kumkum on Mastan’s wounds and prayed to the deity, at which he recovered miraculously. Mastan then prayed and asked that the procession halt at his dargah after his death.
Both Hindus and Muslims — who have for generations lived cheek by jowl in this part of the city — take part in the festival.
