Team Blitz India
Sabarimala: With only a few days left for Mandala Puja, the ritual marking the conclusion of the 41-day-long first leg of the annual pilgrimage season, the Lord Ayyappa hill shrine is witnessing a heavy rush of pilgrims. In order to ease the situation, the authorities have placed traffic restrictions in Pampa and Erumely.
Long queues were witnessed as the devotees waited in line for up to 16 hours to ascend the 18 holy steps leading to the temple and perform darshan. The influx also kept the police on their toes. The virtual queue bookings for the day, meanwhile, were just below 80,000.
When the temple was closed on December 20 night, the queue of devotees had extended up to Sabaripeedom. Besides these devotees, those who were waiting at Pampa and got stuck in vehicles due to blocking of traffic en route to Pampa, etc made their way to the temple early. They were soon joined in by those who had booked virtual queue slots for the day, leading to a heavy rush.
On December 21, the rush to ascend the 18 holy steps extended to the top portion of Appachimedu. As the stretch from Appachimedu to Pampa is in a steep decline, pilgrims are not allowed to stand in a queue along this route. Instead, they are blocked at Pampa itself.
The Thanka Anki ritual, a key event performed as part of the Mandala puja, is on December 26 while the Mandala Puja falls the next day. The bookings for these two days are relatively low.
