Mangalore: Colourful Culmination to ‘Kodial Teru’ with ‘Okkul’
Pics: Dayanand Kukkaje
Daijiworld Media Network – Mangalore (SP)
Mangalore, Jan 23: The Avabhrutotsava, popularly known as ‘Okkul’ (Okuli), which always features on the last day of the annual car festival celebrations of Lord Venkatramana temple in Car Street here, held on Saturday January 23, signalled the conclusion of this year’s celebrations.
Since early morning today, people of all ages were seen exulting in joy, exchanging fraternal greetings, smearing different colours on each other, and spraying coloured water on others. It was rare to see people without an array of assorted colours on their clothes in Car Street today.
As the Lord was brought out of the temple after the performance of ‘Vasanta Puja’, the youngsters took over the palanquin in which the Lord’s idol was installed. The palanquin was taken around different streets. Different groups were seen dancing to the tunes of DJ music, coming out of the loud speakers mounted on different vehicles at various points. Water tankers were seen spraying water on the crowd. As the palanquin moved, the people of the houses located on the route, sprayed coloured water on those accompanying the palanquin, from the large containers they had already kept ready.
The route, on which the palanquin travelled, soon sported all the colours of the rainbow. The Okkul will come to an end with the holy bath of the idol in the tank next to Vithoba temple in the evening, after which the palanquin will return to the temple.