It’s Navaratri Chaturthi, therefore today’s alankaram is Ganesha Alingana Shakti (गणेश आलिङ्गन शक्ति) or “the Shakti who embraces Ganesha.”
We spent 8 long hours with barely a break for lunch and a quick tea in between to watch the Nandhikeswara priests Sivavijay and Sivakadhir create this form. They had already prepared the form of Ganesha using a metal frame, covering it to create the required body and trunk shape with thengai naar (coconut fibre). All this was held together by jute string, and then a surface smoothened with the aid of a little plaster of paris (because it dries quickly and it allows them to keep and re-use the form). On top of this Ganesa is chandana-kaappu, which is then painted. The PoP inside allows for a degree of moisture-absorption, so the process is smooth. Ambal’s form is given more with the use of pre-prepped cloth-covered limbs (with their brass hand and foot “endings”), and then enlarged with newspaper. She is then dressed in a sari, with jewels and maalas while Her face is done and the body of her son. Hands and feet are eventually done with maravalli maavu (tapioca flour) as that is less “wet” and easier to work with than chandanam. The priest does the Ambal’s face with chandanam at first, and then discards it entirely because it does not dry fast enough (no PoP beneath, only banana stem and pattai pieces), and hangs and droops and distorts. He repeats the process with maravalli kizhangu maavu.
At the end, shaping hands and feet also with maavu was a little rushed – closing in on 5pm and the aradhanai starts at 630pm. The flower maalas go on top– a few in woollen colours, one with the fresh flowers just arrived. We leave to go home and change, but when we’re back we realise the priest’s search for perfection has brought about a more angular draping of the maalas, which makes a huge difference. “By that one korai (lack or deficiency), the whole form should not be tarnished,” he would say, and re-do what he felt not to be correctly done, or formed. Everything took longer because of it, but everything was richer and more perfect because of it.