Sreelakshmi Prakash

Sharmila Joshi

Editor

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When Posani Ashwin, 32 years old, left his family’s house around
noon, he touched the feet of his 76-year-old grandmother, Posani Laxmi Amma, to
receive her blessings. When he returned three hours later, utterly though
temporarily transformed, she touched his. Between the two acts of reverence lay
a century-old ritual that embodies the faith of a whole community – the
Pothuraju tradition. 

Devotees standing on the sidewalks and in the balconies of
houses showered flowers on Ashwin when he stormed back home as the
fearsome-looking Pothuraju, fully smeared with kumkum (vermilion) and turmeric, wielding
a whip and fuming. When he entered the gate of Laxmi Nilayam in the Mekal Banda locality in south-east
Hyderabad, he scattered the animated, cheering crowd by cracking his whip. Inside the house, he came face to face with
his grandmother. She bowed and touched his feet with tears in her eyes. Ashwin’s terrified daughter, eight-year-old
Shasra, still not used to seeing her father like this, hid behind her mother,
Kavitha. Shasra’s elder brother, 10-year-old Rithwik, stayed away too from his
father in his fearsome avatar.

“I am totally in a trance after
becoming Pothuraju,” Ashwin says. “I have no power over my body. I act
according to the goddess&#39; will. Even when I am visiting my own home, I don&#39;t
realise it. The goddess directs me.”

<a></a>For five years now Ashwin has
transformed into Pothuraju on the day of Bonalu – an annual festival in the
month of Ashada (June-July) in the state of Telangana, dedicated to Goddess
Mahankali. The festivities begin at the fort of Golconda, around 12 kilometres from Mekal
Banda, and occupy four Sundays in various parts of the city.

Ashwin is the head Pothuraju of the local Lal Darwaza
Simhavahini Mahankali temple. “The Pothuraju [an incarnation of Vishnu, say
some accounts say] is the protector of the Seven Sisters, the grama devatas,” says 61-year-old Posani Babu
Rao, Ashwin’s father, himself a Pothuraju from 1983 to 2013. The deities are part of the folk culture of
the state. The seniormost is Mahankali, the festival’s central deity (say
temple websites). Worshippers believe that the goddess wards off diseases. &quot;The Pothuraju is the brother of the goddess,” Babu says.  He dances for two to five hours to make the
goddess happy.”

The Pothuraju, he adds, also “protects women carrying bonam [to the temple].” In
Telugu, ‘bonam’
means ‘meal’, and the name of the festival, Bonalu, is derived from this word.
As part of the tradition, women cook rice with milk and jaggery in a new
earthen or brass pot. The pot is adorned with neem leaves, turmeric and vermilion. Women and girls carry these on their heads and offer them with bangles and sarees to
the goddess at the temple. 

For Ashwin, the preparations begin 15 days before Bonalu. During
this time, he does not consume non-vegetarian food and alcohol, and immerses
himself in prayers. Eight days before the festival, the temple priest begins a
series of pujas of
the ghatam (a copper pot decorated in
the form of the goddess) kept inside the temple. 

On the day of Bonalu, the temple committee members visit
Ashwin’s house (a few metres away from his family’s house) and escort him to
the temple, accompanied by a percussion band. The walk, amid crowds of
devotees, takes around half an hour. At the temple, Ashwin seeks the blessing
of Goddess Mahankali – Kali seated on a lion.
The priest hands over the bhandar (kumkum, turmeric,
coconut oil, and a garland of jasmine, rose and marigold flowers) to him. One
of his family members, the ‘bhandari’, carries these materials. “The temple
provides me with the materials. I am the only officially appointed Pothuraju in
the temple. You can find other Pothurajus during the festival, but none of them
are from our family. They do it for fun and even pose for selfies,” says
Ashwin.

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After receiving the bhandar,
Ashwin returns to his ancestral house. The male elders of the Posani family sit
and make pasu –
a mixture of the turmeric, kumkum,
oil and water – while Ashwin takes a bath. Wearing only  red underpants, he then
smears the mixture on his body with help from his family elders and temple
representatives. A charla
cola (whip) and a waistband of ghungroos (small bells) are kept beside the
photos of deceased relatives who had been Pothurajus. All this while, the band
plays outside the house. Once the pasu has been applied, all the
people in the room chant prayers to the goddess. The charla cola is
dipped in the pasu
and given to Ashwin by the elders, who also tie the waistband around his waist.
He is now the Pothuraju.

“Devotees wait outside the gates
of their home for the Pothuraju to come,” Ashwin says. He is the sixth generation in
his family carrying forward this 11-year-old legacy, says his father, Babu. The
family belongs to the Mudiraj
caste, listed as an OBC in
Telangana. Babu, a retired foreman with the department of transportation
in the Hyderabad municipal corporation, says, “In 1908, the Musi river (Hyderabad is
located on the banks of this river) flooded and the death toll rose with the
outbreak of cholera. The water had touched the Charminar. The then Nizam of
Hyderabad, Mir Osman Ali Khan,
and his prime minister, Maharaja Kishen Pershad, went to the banks of the river with a winnowing basket
filled with rice, gold, jewels, diamonds and other riches, left the offerings
in the river, and begged the goddess to thwart the flood.” The water receded
and the Lal Darwaza temple, built a year earlier, in 1907, gained prominence.

“Our forefather, Singharam Babbaiyya, was appointed as the first
Pothuraju by the temple authorities in 1908,” Babu reminisces. Over a century
later, the Posani family continues the traditions associated with the temple. 

“This is a part of our
family tradition and we will continue it,” says T. Mallika Rakesh, Ashwin’s 33-year-old sister, a homemaker.
“It’s a service to the goddess. In the week of Bonalu, people from the area
keep visiting our family. On the day of Bonalu we serve food and liquor to
everyone who visits.” The meals include rice and puris, and mutton and chicken curries;
the liquor comes from the local shop.

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“Getting whipped by the Pothuraju [people believe] wards off
diseases. People queue up to get beaten by him,” Mallika adds. As Pothuraju,
Ashwin strikes people with the whip, chasing them as they run away. After a
while, as devotees surround him, he begins to dance. He stops outside houses
where devotees touch and wash his feet, and drape him with shawls and flower
garlands. He whips them, too. This is considered a blessing by worshippers.

“Parents even want the Pothuraju
to whip the children so that they will stay healthy. Small children aren&#39;t
whipped, but I put charla cola around their neck and bless them,&quot;
Ashwin says. “Our
family incurs all the expenses for this ritual [around Rs. 3 lakhs every year].
“The temple gives me 2,100 rupees and a gold ring weighing two and a half
grams.”

As the Pothuraju’s procession winds its way through small lanes
around the temple, after hours of dancing and whipping people, Ashwin enters
the Lal Darwaza temple. There, the shanti
ritual is performed in order to dispossess Ashwin of his Pothuraju incarnation.
The temple priest pours water on him, and hands him more mixture of turmeric
and kumkum; Ashwin comes out and
distributes this among the gathered crowd.

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This is followed by the rangam or fortune-telling by a woman who,
‘possessed’ by Goddess Mahankali, becomes an oracle (more on her follows in another story).
She makes predictions about people’s well-being and the weather, and responds
to questions asked by the priest and devotees. 

Then the ghatam is
lifted, and accompanied by a procession of the devotees, it is immersed in the
Musi river by the priest and temple authorities. The festival is officially
over.

The next day, Ashwin, fearsome Pothuraju, protector of the Seven
Sisters, giver of blessings by means of whipping, becomes an auto-parts dealer
again – in everyday life, he works in
his well-to-do family firm selling automobile parts at Uppuguda in the old part of Hyderabad city. 

“I’ve been seeing him become Pothuraju  for five years now. He looks different as
Pothuraju,” says 28-year-old Kavitha, “but when he comes back home, he is my
same old husband.”

Fuming and fearsome, dancing and whipping

கிலியூட்டும் ஆவேசமும், சாட்டை அடியும் ஆட்டமும்

क्रोधित और भयावह, नाचना और कोड़े लगाना

برہم اور خوفناک، رقص کرنا اور کوڑے لگانا

ପ୍ରଖର ଏବଂ ଭୟଙ୍କର, ନୃତ୍ୟ ଏବଂ ପ୍ରହାର

Hyderabad

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Fuming and fearsome, dancing and whipping

During the Bonalu festival every year, Posani Ashwin, an auto-parts dealer in Hyderabad, transforms into the Pothuraju, a deity believed to ward off diseases – 'possessed', he blesses and enthralls the crowds

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