Thaipusam

Pain is as diverse as man. One suffers as one can.
— Victor Hugo
“Thoughts,” in Victor Hugo’s Intellectual Autobiography, (1907).

It's pretty fascinating the way people (all over the world) push themselves into extreme experiences. This festival is one of physical testing. It reminds me of stories of saints, of the Catholic pious inflicting pain in order to prove worth. But instead of it being dark and depressing as i imagine those examples were...this is joyous, colorful, communal, festive.

Pain is superficial, and therefore fear is.
The torments of martyrdoms are probably most keenly felt by the by-standers.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Courage,” Society and Solitude (1870).

In Thaipusam, at least as far as I've gleaned from Arul, the idea is beauty. It's all about asking for beauty and creativity. To ask properly you fast for 30 days, abstain from physical intimacy, think pure thoughts and prepare for the procession. Here in Singapore the procession is 4 km, repeated over and over between two temples, for 24 hours. Faithful walk and families join and encourage each other on. Those who do not bleed show that they abstained. Most do not bleed at all.


Everyone carries milk to the temples or buys milk at the temples, to be poured at the alter. There is an incredible smell of milk inside, which totally contrasts with the physicality of the followers. I imagine pain, but none is apparently experienced. and the milky contrast is like yin and yang. male extreme pain (or self inflicted tests that do not apparently cause pain) fused with the smell of mothers, of life. wild.

Mother,
strange goddess face
above my milk home,
that delicate asylum,
I ate you up.
— Anne Sexton “Dreaming the Breasts.”

No pain, no palm; no thorns, no throne; no gall, no glory; no cross, no crown.
— William Penn, No Cross, No Crown (pamphlet) (1669).