Curtain goes up on 10-day Kalpathy car festival

PALAKKAD The 10-day annual Kalpathy car festival began on Saturday with traditional rituals marking the start of one of Keralam’s well-known temple festivals. The ceremonial hoisting of flags (Dwajarohanam) at the four participating temples will take place on Sunday morning. The festival is jointly organised by four temples in the Kalpathy heritage village: Visalakshi Sametha Viswanatha Swami Temple, Kalpathy; Manthakkara Mahaganapathy Temple, New Kalpathy; Lakshmi Narayan Perumal Temple, Old Kalpathy; and Prasanna Mahaganapathy Temple, Chathapuram.

The festival will conclude on November 17. With large crowds expected, the district police, government departments, Palakkad municipality and temple committees have coordinated security, traffic and other arrangements. The temple committees have sought crowd management measures, police deployment and safety arrangements along the chariot routes and riverbanks.

They have also called for restrictions on roadside vending and parking to keep the routes and approach roads clear.