India - Nepal - Pakistan

Apr. 18 Harvest Festival in The Land of the Gods Kerala Celebrates on Water:A hundred miles from Trivanderum, Kerala, India is The Venice of the East'. There, centred on a village of Aranmula, thousands annually celebrate a form of water harvest festival, another river Pamba. Highlight of this ancient festival is a pageant of 30 snake-boats which are rowed from the village downstream to an temple to Krishna and back again seven time to the encouragement of handclaps from thousands of spectators from the neighbouring villages each of which owns a boat. The pageant or festival orginates in the dim past and is reputed to have its beginnings when during the Feast of Onam a local chieftsin living on the riverbank wept because Onam a local chieftsin living on the riverbank wept because there was no one to share the feast day with him. Lord Krishna is the guise of a poor brahmin came down to satisfy his yearning for companionship, and later revealed his identity in a dream. He then decalred that for evermore the feast should be brought to him at the Aranmula Temple downstream. From that day, each year these now coopertively owned snake costs bring feasts and offering to the to the temple as part of the festival. These pictures just received of this year's celebrations show the snake boats participating and the villagers, complete with umbrellas taking their share in the ancient celebrations. Splashes a plenty as the long snake boats make their way in formation downstream to the Krishna temple on the Famba River, during the Onam Festival

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Annually Beginnings Brahmin Bring Centred Companionship Costs Downstream Encouragement Evermore Feast Feasts Gods Guise Highlight Identity Kerala Krishna Neighbouring Owns Pageant Participating Plenty Reputed Revealed Riverbank Rowed Satisfy Share Splashes Umbrellas Villagers Villages Wept Yearning

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