Evening, Angalamman. Intense! Outside the Angalamman temple in Angalanagar (Muthialpet, in its larger placement) is a ground on which a massive figure of Vallalaraja’s queen Villalasini or Vallala Kandi as she is called has been shaped in mud and decorated with coloured powders. Her hair is spread wide, almost a halo, and strewn with flower garlands–marigolds, tellingly, which are never used in pujas partly because they are not a native flower, but not just marigolds. She is carrying a child who is Siva (thanks to a boon granted to Vallalaraja in recognition of his penances) and can be born in two forms. If he is born at the right moment and does not touch the ground, his force as a manifestation of Siva will be unstoppable, the cosmos stands to be destabilised. If he does touch the ground, however, it is prophesied (somehow) that the power of his birth will be transferred away from Vallalaraja, and will cause his death and the destruction of his line. Just now the pregnant wife is lying in the ground, birth is imminent. We all know what must happen, but just how is where all the magic of this evening lies.
Meantime, camphor lamps are lit and incense and kunkuma offered to the prone figure of the Queen, who is carrying the Siva yet to be born, after all. Policemen are everywhere. This event has, in the past, caused conflict between different Angalamman-worshipping communities in the region, each claiming Her for their own and the rights to conduct the festival in her honour, too. In fact, there’s an Angalamman temple being built on the beach side of the sudukaadu or graveyard nearby, and that one belongs to the fishermen. Our temple as we understand is a Vanniar-Gounder-Padayatchi shrine. Not sure which community keeps control of the Angalamman Koyil in Pondicherry’s main town area; that’s the other significant one in this region.
The story of the evening is being told by Senthil Pusari, who comes from a family of hereditary pambaikaras, aided by a sidekick who throws up errors while listening that make for good amusement. A green-faced thirunangai joins the group, after a while. Is she the fortune-teller who becomes the mid-wife who is Periyachi or Pecchayiamman? Dressed in a strange light-suit with a tall, triangular head-dress topped with a disc and fitted with lights, out comes Vallalaraja himself. A host of “swamis” (as people call them) follow: thirunangais dressed as terrible goddesses, and other heavily painted figures we cannot recognise.
Vallalaraja has a grand welcoming into the ground (but is immediately made to halt temporarily due to some serial lights malfunctioning!!). Vallalaraja and the green Thirunangai take countless rounds conversing, arguing, mocking, threatening, justifying, re-questioning, rebutting, and also at one point, kicking!
All this goes on for long, as crowds gather.
Two deities emerge from the temple, eventually. They go around the temple prakaram once, and then emerge into the road, the processional and dramatic storytelling space, where their carriages and vahanas wait. One is clearly Angalamman, standing in a warrior stance, legs wide apart. The other is Pecchayiamman, here the mid-wife (maruthuvachi) who births Siva, the body of the Queen laid across her lap so that the birth does not happen on the ground – she has the Queen’s body torn, the infant child held high up by her right hand, and entrails garlanding everything. But she emerges with a long black cloth covering her. This cloth comes onto the ground and encircles the prone Queen figure–presumably, this is the now the scene of birthing.
Amman is clearly loaded on a vahana vandi going East, but we lose track of her. Her veethi ula perhaps takes a long route returning only much later in the night. We presume her path marks out the area which is the Kottai (fort) or is the fort encirclement (Kottai Valam), to commemorate her victory over the demon king.
Pecchayiamman also goes out on the same roads, but U-turns and returns and remains in the close vicinity of the temple, where the child is born. The swamis follow. They all stop at homes along the way, where they are tended to, allowed to sit and given refreshment. Eventually, Pecchayiamman returns to the front of the Angalamman temple, where people have been waiting for a fire dance spectacle to commence. That finishes–and then Pecchayiamman’s vahana carries her West, further into the neighbourhood.
But Pecchayiamman is Angala Parameswari. She assumes her true form and at some point in this street theatrical performance, the child takes on the form of Siva’s fearful Bhairava. Together they destroy the fortress and kill the demon king, turning the place into a burial ground.
Here the story intersects with that of Siva carrying the hungry kapala in graveyards–which is apparently one for tomorrow, when Parvati fuses herself to Siva and they become the Ardhanariswara form, half woman, half man. This is why the fortune teller Thirunangais believe themselves to be this form of Parvati and that Amman speaks through them, though it is unclear if and how this is re-enacted ritually.