I’m back to my city in the Southern tip of India after a significant three years far away in New York. The local festival season of Pongala is a great time to roam over the bustling suburbs, to explore the trends of my lovely city.

As I walked, I could not but stare at the display window of the dilapidated shop on the side walk.

The sight of a young princely man in a photo frame…he was not any of our Rajas..he was not one of our curly hair chested film heroes either..! I was curious, but then who?

He was the employee of that tiny dark tailoring shop in the suburbs, as mentioned by his employer.

At a point when young men of his age might be dreaming of suits, did he rewind a century behind? No, its the balance sheet of a prosperous religious soap season that ended a few months back on our television channels, when my grand parents piously clamped themselves to the chairs post dinner, hesitant to even attend phone calls. The young tailor was an actor in one of such godly soaps.

A day before the ‘pongala festival’ when the entire city was filled with such terracotta pots for sale. City just turned a mall for mud pot sale! The sellers came in all variety..some were chirpy, some were charged and some were really sad!

A glimpse of the Pongala festival 2008 is here.

On the occassion of annual Pongala festival held in the city of Trivandrum.This gathering of women with their cooking pots make a special ‘pongala offering’ to the goddess Attukalama. This festival won the world guiness award for recording the highest attendance of women, 1.5 million (15 lakhs) in 1997. Ever since the number of attendees have been on the rise! The city was filled with smoke when millions of stoves were fired at the same time. Despite heat, smoke and dust, women just went on..