By DHARMENDER SINGH<\/strong><\/p>\n PORT KLANG: A flood of requests from devotees this year has compelled the 160-year-old Sri Balasubramaniar Swamy Temple here to celebrate Thaipusam on a grand scale for the first time, with an expected crowd of 100,000 kavadi<\/em> bearers and devotees. <\/p>\n Temple chairman R.S. Maniam said the committee had been inundated with calls from devotees who wanted to take their kavadi <\/em>to the temple and the number was growing by the day.<\/p>\n “We are surprised by the sudden number of requests. This is the first time in the temple’s long history that the celebration will be carried out so grandly,” he said.<\/p>\n “Thaipusam is usually just a small affair here with only about 1,000 paal kudam<\/em> (milk pot) bearers making the 3km journey from the Hari Krishna Alayar Temple in Jalan Tengku Badar.<\/p>\n He said the grandest annual celebration at the temple in Jalan Limbongan here was usually during the Chitrai Pournami<\/em> prayers, where about 3,000 kavadi<\/em> bearers take part. This celebration, which falls in the month of Chitrai<\/em> in April\/May marking the first full moon of the Hindu New Year, also honours Lord Muruga. Maniam said the committee was worried about its ability to handle the celebration on such a grand scale but said it would be improper to turn away devotees seeking to fulfil their vows.<\/p>\n He said some 10,000 kavadi<\/em> were expected to be brought to the temple from about 6pm today for Thaipusam, which falls tomorrow.<\/p>\n On transport to the temple, he said, the public should use KTM Komuter as the Port Klang station was located just behind the temple.<\/p>\n In PENANG, police are bracing for a huge Thaipusam crowd tomorrow following widely circulated SMSes to boycott celebrations at Batu Caves in Selangor.<\/p>\n George Town OCPD Asst Comm Azam Abd Hamid said more than 1,000 policemen would be deployed along strategic intersections.<\/p>\n “In previous years, between 50,000 and 70,000 devotees were here. This year, we expect the number to double in view of the SMSes and e-mails to boycott Thaipusam at Batu Caves,” he said yesterday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" More crowd expected in other venues due to boycott of Batu Caves. 100,000 to flood temple source By DHARMENDER SINGH PORT KLANG: A flood of requests from devotees this year has compelled the 160-year-old Sri Balasubramaniar Swamy Temple here to celebrate Thaipusam on a grand scale for the first time, with an expected crowd of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,10],"tags":[37],"class_list":["post-1167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-indian","category-religion","tag-thaipusam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1167\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
\n \n ![](\"http:\/\/www.thestar.com.my\/archives\/2008\/1\/22\/nation\/n_14temple.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n