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SCMP Reporter

I HAD to blink to make sure I wasn't dreaming. Yes, those really were big metal hooks that were being pushed one by one through the skin of Valli's back. And yes, although I had been assured that the young Malaysian Indian was in a complete trance, there was the unmistakable look of pain in his eyes.

   Yet somehow, unlike some of the other devotees in the crowded, incense-filled temple, he resisted the urge to scream or cry out. This was no dream.

    It was the morning of the second day of Thaipusam, the annual Malaysian Hindu festival in which devotees pay homage to the deity Lord Subramanya by piercing their bodies, cheeks and tongues with stainless steel skewers, called vel, and hooks.

  Incredibly, the scene I was witnessing was not taking place in secrecy behind closed doors.

   Visitors like myself were welcome to enter any of the Hindu temples in Georgetown, Penang Island, providing they removed their shoes.

  In fact, there were almost as many visitors as the faithful in the crowd, their expressions ranging from awe to just plain horror.

   Yet somehow the visitors and their flash cameras did not detract from the solemnity of the ceremony.

    I had met Valli's brother Banu the day before in a street market. I must admit that as a confirmed wimp for whom even the thought of going to the dentist turns my knees to jelly, I have always had a morbid fascination for people who voluntarily hurt, torture or maim themselves, especially in the name of religion.

   So when Banu told me his brother would be taking part in Thaipusam tomorrow, I knew I had to witness this bizarre ritual for myself.

   Banu had explained that his father had fallen ill last year and for many months the family had offered prayers for his recovery.

   ''Eventually our prayers were answered,'' he said. ''So now the time has come for Valli to pay homage to Lord Subramanya for his mercy.

  ''For the last few weeks Valli has been preparing himself - fasting, adhering to a strictly vegetarian diet and abstaining from all worldly pleasures.

  ''After that,'' Banu added with a grin, ''the spikes will be nothing.'' I sensed he was only half-joking.

   I followed him through a maze of alleys to Jaian Penang, one of Georgetown's main streets.

   The street was strewn with the remains of hundreds of coconuts which had been smashed as an offering to the gods. The trail of debris led us to a large, colourful procession.

   Nobody seemed to mind that every few seconds a coconut was hurled down on to the pavement in their midst, creating an explosion of milk and shrapnel-like pieces of husk.

   I glimpsed a flash of silver through the crowd. It was a large, bullock-drawn chariot, plated with silver over carved wood and decorated with a menagerie of mythical animals. In the middle of it all stood the brightly painted statues of Lord Subramanya.

    ''This is nothing compared to what you'll see tomorrow,'' Banu told me. ''I promise you'll never forget it.''     Nothing he had told me about what to expect could have prepared me for the sight of all those vel and hooks being deliberately, with almost surgical precision, inserted into living skin and flesh.

   No anaesthetic was used and, surprisingly, there was no bleeding. Afterward, the devotees' skin was covered in white ash. (''To prevent infection,'' Banu claimed.)    One by one, the devotees filed out of the temple and stood in a small, silent group on the street, surrounded by onlookers. Although most of the devotees were Indian, there were also several Chinese.

   Valli and another of the devotees had long vel stuck horizontally through both cheeks.

   Others had upwards of a dozen hooks in their chests from which hung limes or small silver pots of yellow oil, and another dozen or more hooks in their backs to which were attached lengths of cord.

  I didn't have to wonder for long what the cords were for. A chariot, similar to the one in yesterday's street procession, was drawn up, but today there were no bullocks to pull it. Instead, the devotees were hitched to the chariot.

   As one they leaned forward to take the weight, the skin of their backs being pulled out by the hooks like massive goose-bumps. Slowly, inch by agonising inch, the great chariot lumbered forward.

   Those devotees who like Valli weren't hitched to the chariot had to tow a companion, who held the cords in both fists and leaned back to keep them taut. Valli towed Banu.

  The procession moved like a single living organism, writhing and swaying through the streets of Georgetown.

   Every now and then it would stop at a garishly decorated temple or shrine from which recorded music blasted and blessings and jets of water flowed.

   It was a hot and arduous nine kilometres from Sri Mariamman Temple to Penang Hill.

  Crowds from temples all over the city joined together on the stretch of wide, straight street that ran to the foot of the hill.

   Thaipusam is a public holiday in Penang, Kuala Lumpur and several other parts of Malaysia, and at least 500,000 people must have turned out in Georgetown.

  It was here that I came across my first kevadi bearers, two of them moving together through the melee.

   Their kevadis, towering metal structures festooned with peacock feathers and mirrors and supported above their heads by shoulder harnesses and long vel fanning out from the flesh of their hips, must have weighed at least 30 kilograms.

  Apart from these, the kevadi bearers wore only loincloths. They carried walking sticks which they used for protection rather than support, swinging them viciously at anybody who threatened to get close enough to bump the precarious structures pinned to their bodies.

  At the foot of Penang Hill, the crowd halted amid a carnival of food and entertainment stalls but for Valli and the other devotees, the last leg of their ordeal still remained. On they trudged, many with faltering steps, up the steep, winding hill trail.

   At the temple above, their burden would be lifted, their vel and hooks removed, their duty done.

   But when Valli came down at last and joined us, he looked as though he was ready to go through it all again. He seemed not to notice the holes in his chest and back. His eyes gleamed with triumph and excitement.

  Banu laughed. ''It's always this way. They come out of the kind of trance they've been in and they think 'I've done it, I made it' so they're ecstatic. They're as high as a kite for an hour or two. Then the adrenalin wears off and the real pain starts.''   I had to fly out of Penang early next morning so I missed the third day of Thaipusam. But two days later I visited the enormous Batu Caves on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur, another famous gathering-place for Thaipusam.

   The place reeked so badly from rotting piles of rubbish left behind by a crowd estimated at nearly one million that I had to leave after just a few minutes.

  In a region known for its bizarre rituals, Thaipusam stands out as one of Asia's most amazing spectacles.

   Yet unlike some other events such as the Chinese Vegetarian Festival in Phuket, where participants seem to be trying to outdo each other with acts of outrageous masochism for the benefit of tourists, Thaipusam still has an air of authenticity, of being true to the spirit of its origins in southern India. It is certainly an event that, as Banu had promised, I will never forget.



Getting hooked on religion