Sunday was quite hectic since we planned to visit Maran Maranthadavar temple for its kumbhabishegam (consecration) ceremony.

Left home around 6am, taking LDP highway, passing by Batu Caves and entered Gombak to access KL-Karak highway. The whole journey to the temple took about 2.5 hours. The drive was cautious due to foggy road conditions between Karak and the Chenor/Jengka exit. The roads were clear and for most strecthes, we could only see one or two cars at a time.

We reached within 500 metres of the temple, passing by nearly a kilometre of road lined up with vehicles on both sides of the road.

We were stopped at at a roadblock and asked to divert to the oil palm estate on the right side for parking. We were guided to a parking spot, and the chinese guy collected RM10 as parking fee. Wonder if the police were in cahoots with the guy or not. 🙂 There was not much way to u-turn, so one have to pay for parking. No wonder the other cars parked along the roadside leading to temple.

We walked a short distance to temple. Outside the temple, there were stalls set up – from free medical checkup to vegetarian food. There were many traders selling souvenirs, praying items, religous knick-knacks by sitting down along the roadsides, just like pasar malam or fivefoot pavement style.

We entered the temple and bought the prayer receipt. It cost RM4. The kumbhabisegham prayers were being held under a temporary shed next to the temple. It was led by Muthukumara Gurukkal with another 10 or so assistants. The weather was getting hot and it was difficult to find a nice spot to stand. From time to time, the PA system announced sale of magazines and special religous items.

The temple was yellow in color, with dabs of pink at certain places. I felt that it could have been given a better color combination. 🙄 It had some chandelier style lights as well. No fans, since the breeze will be cooling enough on normal days.

Many people were buying yellow cloth (with coins in it) to be tied around the tree.

The crowd numbered about 2000 – 3000 people in my estimation. Very much less than what I anticipated.

The prayer went on till 10.30am. Then, the procession went around the temple and finally the procession went up the temple via the temporarily construction staircase. There were some confusion as not all were allowed to go to the top by the security people. Some prayers were recited and the ambishegam was done. Then, the security people were allowed to ask the devotees to go up as well. About 40 people managed to take this opportunity to go on top of the temple. I was too slow to react because unsure of what was happening.

At about 10.45am, the moment many devotees had been waiting for finally appeared. The workers threw buckets of the prayer water down on to the devotees. Many were drenched, including myself. Some devotees took out their water bottles and plastic bags to collect the water. It was quite hectic for the next 10 minutes or so as the crowd pushed in front and jostled for better positions.

After that, we went back into the temple to do “archanai” (prayer). There were some prayers going on, which lasted for about 15 minutes. The microphones also failed from time to time, due to dead batteries. The crowd was large, and there was no system or guide on the movement or flow of the crowd. Took us nearly 20 minutes to reach the front of the queue, only to realise that the priests were giving out vibuthi (sacred ash). “archanai” have to wait” one of the priests told me, he himself unsure how long.

We waited for another 10 minutes before queueing again. This time we stood near the Vinayagar deity side (right side of temple) together with about another 30 people. The queue was not moving at all. The priests were still doing the prayers and handling the temple donors/sponsors first. The crowd start to become agitated. Some began to shout at the priests.

Amidst this, two priests were busy peddling their wares, right in front of Vinayagar statue. Selling strings to be tied around the wrists for RM1 per string. I was really pissed off. Here the crowd is getting tired of waiting, no one is guiding or doing anything, but these two guys are busy being entrepreneurs! Luckily, another priest scolded them and they stopped selling.

The donors and sponsors were a lot and it was time consuming. There was no system at all on how to enter and exit the queue. The temple committee was no where to be seen. The priests were left on their own, earning abusive words from the crowd. Some of the priests helped to collect the archanai receipts first. I was fed up of waiting and passed the receipts with the gifts to Lord Muruga to the priest and asked them to do it later. We got out of the queue at about 12.35pm. Queueing up took up more than one hour from the time we went to the main deity’s area.

In my opinion, the organisers made a mess out of the function. The PA system was not properly utilised for crowd management. Instead they were busy announcing sales of magazines. The voice was also not clear enough. They may need to invest on proper PA system.

There were no people/volunteers to control/guide the crowd. People don’t know where to go and when to go. They just queue up and wait with the rest. This caused lots of unhappiness with the devotees.

The priests also refused to attend to the devotees, and were trying to settle the sponsors/donors first quickly. There were at least 10 priests, but not sure how they helped to reduce the problem. I think the organisers should have set out proper lines and paths using ropes or signboards so that the devotees know where to queue. They should also announce that “archanai” can be done after certain time, so that devotees won’t be left standing for so long.

Anyway, we left at around 1.15pm, tired.