Thaipusam is a Hindu festival celebrated mostly by the Tamil community on the full moon in the Tamil month of Thai (January/February). It is celebrated not only in countries where the Tamil community constitutes a majority, but also in countries where Tamil communities are smaller, such as Singapore and Malaysia.The festival is also referred to as Thaipooyam or Thaippooyam. The word Thaipusam is derived from the month name Thai and Pusam, which refers to a star that is at its highest point during the festival. The festival commemorates the occasion when Parvati gave Murugan a vel (spear) so he could vanquish the evil demon Soorapadman. There is a misconception among people that Thaipusam marks Murugan's birthday; however, it is believed that Vaikhasi Vishakam, which falls in the Vaikhasi month (May/June), is Murugan's birthday.
Kavadi Attam is a dance performed by the devotees during the ceremonial worship of Murugan, the Tamil God of War.It is often performed during the festival of Thaipusam and emphasizes debt bondage. The Kavadi itself is a physical burden through which the devotees implore for help from the God Murugan. The Kavadi consists of two semicircular pieces of wood or steel which are bent and attached to a cross structure that can be balanced on the shoulders of the devotee. It is often decorated with flowers, peacock fathers (the vehicle of God Murugan) among other things. Some of the Kavadis can weigh up to 30 kg.
TYPES OF KAVADI 
Vel Kavadi
The most spectacular practice is the vel kavadi, essentially a portable altar up to two meters tall, decorated with peacock feathers and attached to the devotee through 108 vels pierced into the skin on the chest and back. Fire walking and flagellation may also be practiced. It is claimed that devotees are able to enter a trance, feel no pain, do not bleed from their wounds and have no scars left behind.
Other types of Kavadi 
Not all Kavadi involve extreme physical endurance. Some devotees also carry a brass jug of milk (Pal Kavadi) on their heads while others carry small pots with offerings for their deity.
BATU CAVES
Batu Caves is a limestone hill, which has a series of caves and cave temples, located in Gombak district, 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) north of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It takes its name from the Sungai Batu or Batu River, which flows past the hill. Batu Caves is also the name of the nearby village. The cave is one of the most popular Hindu
shrines outside India, dedicated to Lord Murugan. It is the focal point of Hindu festival of Thaipusam in Malaysia. The limestone forming Batu Caves is said to be around 400 million years old. Some of the cave entrances were used as shelters by the indigenous Temuan people (a tribe of Orang Asli).
As early as 1860, Chinese settlers began excavating guano for fertilising their vegetable patches. However, they became famous only after the limestone hills were recorded by colonial authorities including Daly and Syers as well as American Naturalist, William Hornaday in 1878. Batu Caves was promoted as a place of worship by K. Thamboosamy Pillai, an Indian trader. He was inspired by the 'vel'-shaped entrance of the main cave and was inspired to dedicate a temple to Lord Muruga within the caves.
In 1890, Pillai, who also founded the Sri Mahamariamman Temple, Kuala Lumpur, installed the murti (consecrated statue) of Sri Subramania Swamy in what is today known as the Temple Cave. Since 1892, the Thaipusam festival in the Tamil month of Thai (which falls in late January/early February) has been celebrated there. Wooden steps up to the Temple Cave were built in 1920 and have since been replaced by 272 concrete steps. Of the various cave temples that comprise the site, the largest and best known is the Temple or Cathedral Cave, so named because it houses several Hindu shrines beneath its 100 m vaulted ceiling. Rising almost 100 m above the ground, Batu Caves temple complex consists of three main caves and a few smaller ones. The biggest, referred to as Cathedral Cave or Temple Cave, has a 100 m-high ceiling, and features ornate Hindu shrines. To reach it, visitors have to climb a steep flight of 272 steps.
At the base of the hill are two more cave temples, Art Gallery Cave and Museum Cave, both of which are full of Hindu statues and paintings. This complex was renovated and opened as the Cave Villa in 2008. Many of the shrines relate the story of Lord Murugan's victory over the demon Soorapadam. An audio tour is available to visitors. The Ramayana Cave is situated to the extreme left as one faces the sheer wall of the hill. On the way to the Ramayana Cave, there is a 50-foot (15 m) tall murti of Hanuman and a temple dedicated to Hanuman,
the noble monkey devotee and aide of Lord Rama. The consecration ceremony of the temple was held in November 2001. The Ramayana Cave depicts the story of Rama in a chronicle manner along the irregular walls of the cave. A 42.7m (140.09 feet high) high statue of Lord Muruga was unveiled in January 2006, having taken 3 years to construct. It is the tallest Lord Muruga statue in the world. Batu Caves serves as the focus of the Hindu community's yearly Thaipusam festival. It has become a pilgrimage site for not only Malaysian Hindus, but Hindus worldwide from countries such as India, Australia and Singapore.
A procession begins in the wee hours of the morning on Thaipusam from the Sri Mahamariamman Temple, Kuala Lumpur leading up to Batu Caves as a religious undertaking to Lord Muruga lasting eight hours. Devotees carry containers containing milk as offering to Lord Muruga either by hand or in huge decorated carriers on their shoulders called 'kavadi'. The kavadi may be simple wooden arched semi-circular supports holding a carrier foisted with brass or clay pots of milk or huge, heavy ones which may rise up to two metres, built of bowed metal frames which hold long skewers, the sharpened end of which pierce the skin of the bearers torso. The kavadi is decorated with flowers and peacock feathers imported from India. Some kavadi may weigh as much as a hundred kilograms. After a bath in the nearby Sungei Batu (Rocky River), the devotees wend their way to the Temple Cave and with remarkable endurance they climb the flights of stairs to the temple in the cave. Devotees use the wider centre staircase while worshippers and onlookers throng up and down those balustrades off on either side. When the kavadi bearer arrives at the foot of the 272 step stairway leading up to the Temple Cave, the devotee has to make the arduous climb against gravity- against the press of the bustling masses.Priests attend to the kavadi bearers. Consecrated ash is sprinkled over the hooks and skewers piercing the devotees flesh before they are removed. No blood is shed during the piercing and removal. In 2007, the festival attracted more than 1.5 million pilgrims, making it one of the largest gatherings in history.
THAIPUSAM IN MALAYSIA
A test of faith
THAIPUSAM is an annual Hindu festival which draws the largest gathering in multi-racial Malaysia - nearly a million people in 2000. Several hundred devotees spear their cheeks with long, shiny steel rods - often a metre long - and pierce their chests and backs with small, hook-like needles in penance. Tourists watch in awe as metal pierces the skin with hardly any bleeding and, apparently, no pain as the devotee stands in a trance in the dawn light after weeks of rigorous abstinence.
Over the years, curious British, American and Australian medical experts have come to observe and speculate. Some think the white ash smeared on the body, the juice squeezed from the yellow lime fruit or the milk poured on the pierced areas may help to numb the skin. But most admit they have no answer. The devotees say it is faith.
"The belief in Lord Murugan is what prevents the pain and the bleeding," says Krishna Vadyar, a priest at the temple which conducts the annual rituals. There are plenty stories about what Thaipusam is about. Among the most popular is that it commemorates the day Lord Siva's consort, the powerful goddess Parvathi, gives her son, Murugan, the vel (lance) to vanquish three demons and their large army which were plaguing the world. Thaipusam falls on a full moon day in the auspicious 10th Tamil month of Thai when the constellation of Pusam, the star of well-being, rises over the eastern horizon.
In Kuala Lumpur, the festival is celebrated on a mammoth scale at the Batu Caves temple on the outskirts of the city. It began in 1892, started by early Tamils who migrated to colonial Malaya. Devotees queueing up to climb the 272 steps to the Batu Caves Temple.Reportedly, two of them made the difficult trek up the ancient limestone hill and planted the `vel' in the cave. The cave, the size of a soccer field, houses a temple dedicated to Lord Murugan. The vel, made of metal and shaped like a lance, symbolises Murugan who is also known as Velan. On the eve of Thaipusam, a five-ton silver-chariot bearing Lord Murugan's image and followed by a procession of several thousand people leaves the Sri Mahamariaman temple in downtown Kuala Lumpur, on a 15-kilometre trek to Batu Caves. Mahamariamman is also another name for Parvathi, Murugan's mother. Drums beat out trance-inducing rhythms and long wooden pipes, known as nathaswaram, croon devotional tunes in a loud carnival atmosphere.
The ethnic Chinese in Penang and elsewhere in Malaysia also take part in the religious
festivities. Hundreds break coconuts and offer fruits to the God all along the chariot's meandering route. Throughout its history, the chariot has been pulled by up to six pairs of bulls. But in 2000, the organisers responded to accusations of animal abuse, by switching to a motorised vehicle. However, in the island of Penang in northwestern Peninsular Malaysia, the chariot there continued to be pulled by the bulls. Many in the island's large ethnic-Chinese community also take part in the festivities, breaking hundreds of coconuts.
To many Thaipusam is the day of thanksgiving or atonement for wrongs. Spectacular edifices or kavadis are often carried or pulled by the devotees with chains and ropes anchored in the skin of their backs or chests. After ritual cleansing at a stream at the foothills, they walk up the 272 steps accompanied by family and friends. But kavadi carrying need not be so arduous. Just carrying a small pot of milk up the steps to be poured on the vel is enough. Most devotees do this. Some parents carry newborn babies slung in a cloth-cradle hung on a pole shouldered at both ends by the mother and the father as thanks for a safe birth. Some also carry kavadis made of wood or metal adorned with pictures or statues of Hindu deities, flowers and peacock plumes. Others shave their heads bald as a symbol of humility and atonement. Many observe a strict vegetarian diet for about 40 days and renounce all forms of comfort and pleasure-giving activities. The 40 days are spent in meditation and prayer.
Thaipusam is also celebrated in this form in Singapore, Thailand, Mauritius and other countries where Tamil workers migrated.
