Notes From The Road – Thaipusam

I’m in Penang, photographing the Thaipusam festival with some fellow photographers. This morning I was up before 5.30am watching the procession of a Hindu idol and observing devotees in various acts of devotion and thanksgiving. The image above shows men cracking coconuts on the road before the bullock-drawn silver chariot that carried the statue of the Hindu deity Murugan.

People were also bringing trays of offerings, which were passed up to a priest on the chariot, to be blessed before the statue. This ritual, with symbolic purity of the flames, was poignant against the first rays of morning light.