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Mumbai is a mind space, Mumbai is a simmering cauldron of human religiosity, Mumbai is a melting pot of regional cultures becoming one...

Not a single person here at the Marrriammen feast ever bothered to ask me who I was or what was my religion..I was one of them , under the hospitality of a Goddess Mother Marriammen , they worshiped and revered .

This thought was enough for them.

Most of the guys who were to pierce their cheeks with 18 feet steel rods were not just Tamils but Maharashtrians..

They were believers of Goddess Mariammen

The guys here before going towards the beach were busy sharpening the points of the rods..

Ganesh the Head Priest knew I was a Muslim but showed no surprise ..and today he considers me apart of his family..


I have been shooting this festival barefeet all over Mumbai Juhu Nehru Nagar , Macchimar Colony Mahim , Madras Wadi Worli , Sion Koliwada and have captured the Goddess her rituals her followers and the gusto zeal with which this feat is celebrated in Mumbai.

I also visited the Marriammen Temple in Chennai when I went there to shoot Moharam Ashura in 2010..

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mari (Tamil: ????),Tulu(mAri), also known as Mariamman (Tamil: ?????????? and Mariaai (Marathi: ??? ??), both meaning "Mother Mari", spelt also Maariamma (Tamil: ?????????), or simply Amman or Aatha (Tamil: ??????, "mother") is the South Indian Hindu goddess of disease and rain. She is the main South Indian mother goddess, predominant in the rural areas of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. Mari is also closely associated with the Hindu goddesses Parvati and Durga as well as with her North Indian counterpart Shitala Devi.

Origin

Mari likely originated as a village goddess related to fertility and rain. The goddess would have been a local deity, connected to a specific location, close to a certain tree, a rock or a special spot, mostly in rural areas. According to some sources, Mariamman is the same as Renuka or Yellamma and even Sri Chowdeshwari Devi. Sri Thailuramma Devi, Huchamma Devi, Manchamma Devi, Chwodamma Devi or Chowdeshwari are few considered elder sisters of Mariamman.[clarification needed]

One story about the origin of Mariamman is she was the wife of Tirunalluvar, the Tamil poet, who was a pariah, outcaste. She caught smallpox and begged from house to house for food, fanning herself with leaves of the neem or margosa tree to keep the flies off her sores. She recovered and people worshipped her as the goddess of smallpox. To keep smallpox away they hang nim leaves above the doors of their houses.

Another story involves the beautiful virtuous Nagavali, wife of Piruhu, one of the Nine Rishis. One day the Rishi was away and the Trimurti (an image with three heads representing Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva) came to see if her famed beauty and virtue was true. Nagavali did not know them and, resenting their intrusion, turned them into little children. The gods were offended and cursed her, so her beauty faded and her face became marked like smallpox. The Rishi returned, found her disfigured, and drove her away, declaring she would be born a demon in the next world and cause the spread of a disease which would make people like herself. She was called Mari, meaning 'changed.' Both stories are reported by Whitehead and he remarks that in Mysore he was told that Mari meant sakti, power.

Mariamman is an ancient goddess, whose worship probably originated in the tribal religion of Dravidian India before the arrival of the Aryans and the brahman religion. According to tradition, among the Dravidian mountain tribes as in Coorg in southern Karnataka, human sacrifices were offered to Mariamman. These were replaced with animals and as we have seen, in some villages no animal sacrifices are offered. Here we can see a historical gradation.

Local goddesses such as Mariamman who protect villages and their lands and represent the different castes of their worshippers have always been an important part of the religious landscape of South India. However, we can note periods of special significance. The eclecticism of the Vijayanagar period (1336-1565) encouraged folk religion, which became more important and influenced the more literate forms of religion. In the last century and a half there has been a rebirth of Tamil self-consciousness (see Devotion to Murukan). In the middle of the present century deities such as Mariamman have become linked to the "great tradition" as the strata of society which worship the goddess has become integrated into the larger social order.


Iconography

Mari is usually pictured as a beautiful young woman with a red-hued face, wearing a red dress. Sometimes she is portrayed with many arms—representing her many powers—but in most representations she has only two or four.

Mari is generally portrayed in the sitting or standing position, often holding a trident (trisula)

This is a totally experimental daal I just cooked. I didn't follow any recipe I know of and just did it off the cuff as the ideas flowed from my mind. Here's how I made it.

Equal measures of black Urad daal and Moong daal - use as much as you think you need to cook, but keep them equal. Wash the daal thoroughly - in some countries this is really important as you can get small insects in daal. Place in a large, deep pan with plenty of water so it's totally covering the daal by at least twice its volume and boil with a little salt. In another pan heat vegetable oil and add two tea spoons of paanch phoron (five spice) and heat till the phoron starts to sputter. Add some petits pois (baby peas) and haldi (called hollud in Bengali or turmeric powder in English) and fry till the haldi is well coated on the petits pois. Next open a can of tomato and chuck it in. Mix till it all starts to boil. At this point I added some salt and brown sugar and tasted to see how it was. Nice! Next you should take the daal off the boil and very slowly, so as not to scald yourself with hot water, tip all the daal in to the pan containing the petits pois and mix it in well. If required, add some hot water to the daal so it maintains a runny consistency. Raise the heat to bring to the boil and then lower heat, put on the lid and cook till the daal becomes soft. Taste it at this point and add more salt if required. You'll notice the daal expands in volume a lot. Make sure you keep it all nice and wet and don't let the water level drop below the top line of the daal in the pan otherwise the daal will be too dry. That's it! I just took mine off the heat and let it stand for ten minutes. It tastes great! Now I need to think of a name for this recipe.