The Chinakkathoor Pooram is a grand elephant festival that took place on February 18^th. The Festival took place in Palappuram, which is a town in Kerala. Crowds gather to witness a parade of elephants adorned in gold and colorful parasols. To prevent the elephants from running amuck, trained elephant riders are placed atop the elephant. These are the people who make sure the elephants don’t go crazy and endanger the crowd. In addition to the sounds of the crowd, musicians clang symbols together, to the sound of drums.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAO6VxuYseA

It’s not surprising that the Chinakkathoor Pooram features elephants, because elephants are an important part of the Kerala way of life. Some of the temple elephants in Kerala may live comparably better than the lives of some impoverished humans. For instance, each temple elephant has at least three caretakers and healthy herbal medicines are fed annually to each elephant. There are several elephant sanctuaries in Kerala where elephants can live in a habitat that is as natural as possible.

However, not all elephants are equally prized. There are some elephants that are considered more auspicious than others. For instance, elephants normally have eighteen nails, but the ones that have twenty nails are especially valued in Kerala. This is because in Indian mythology, an elephant of Lord Indra was said to have twenty nails. However the main attraction to an elephant is its tusks. Those that have evenly spaced tusks are viewed as being auspicious.

Anyway, back to the festival…

Seventeen days before the Chinakkathoor Pooram festival, a puppet show called Tholpavakoothu is displayed for the public. This puppet show is a type of Indian shadow puppet show that uses puppets in accompaniment of dialogue and music. You can see an example of this type of shadow puppetry in the video below. The puppet shows can be viewed at the Sree Chinakkathoor Bhagavathy Temple grounds, which is where the Chinakkathoor Pooram festival begins.