South Indian Hindus in East London take part in a traditional 'Ther' festival, pulling a large chariot around the streets.
The Sri Murugan Temple in Manor Park, London, built in 2005, is the largest South Indian Hindu temple in Europe and an impressive black granite building to a traditional Tamil plan with three highly decorated towers. A highly decorated chariot carrying images of Hindu Gods (including the Goddess Gayatri) left the temple early on Sunday morning and made its way slowly around the streets of East Ham in a traditional 'Ther' festival, followed by perhaps 5000 people, mainly members of London's Tamil community. Along the route men and women stood in front of their homes and businesses with plates or baskets of fruit to hand to the temple priests riding on the chariot or walking in front for blessings by the Goddess; metal trays bearing fruits were returned bearing a flame and the families held out their hands to feel the warmth. The chariot had two finely painted prancing horses at its front but was pulled by two ropes, on the right by women and on the left by men, with a large mixed crowd of followers behind. A group of musicians walked in front. Those on the ropes and between them and many others walked barefoot through the streets. Men walking with the chariot carried short heavy knives which were used to halve the coconuts offered for blessing, and at several places along the route groups of men stood and threw large numbers of coconuts onto the road to smash. Fortunately there appeared to be no injuries although many of those around - myself included - were soaked by coconut milk and the road was running in it.
Size: 5040px × 3354px
Location: East Ham, London, England, UK
Photo credit: © Peter Marshall / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: chariot, coconuts, east, festival, flames, fruit, gayatri, gifts, goddess, ham, hindu, horses, london, manor, murugan, newham, offerings, park, priests, rathayatra, sri, tamil, temple, ther, women
