On the narrow Shivapada Veedhi near the famed 7th Century Arunachaleswara Temple, built by the Pallavas, in the bustling Tiruvannamalai town, V.C. Manikandan, a skinny 44-year-old man, is usually busy counting rows of fresh milk sachets and ice cream cups in his small milk parlour. His nephew, M. Ravishankar, 25, a graduate, would jot down the numbers on a notebook.
Their job remains the same except on the day of Maha Deepam every year. Manikandan and Ravishankar hail from the fishermen community that for ages has been entrusted with the task of lighting the copper cauldron atop the 2,668-foot-high Annamalai Hills on Maha Deepam, the final day of the Karthigai Deepam festival. “We don’t know when this practice started, but we have been doing this for generations with devotion. As you know, it is not an easy task,” says Mr. Manikandan, a father of two.
The Paruvatha Raja Kulam, to which he belongs, was a local fishermen community that does fishing mainly in inland waterbodies like rivers, lakes, and ponds. They were tasked with laborious temple works since time immemorial.
