Thaipusam Panthal Setup - Penang

It has been almost a week after Thaipusam, and I’ve still not updated anything into my blog yet. Sorry guys, I was really busy setting up Thaneer Panthal on behalf of Indian Makals of company “xyz” and had tons of work after my holidays. Curios to know how to setup a panthal? Great.
OK, let me start…we begin our panthal setup mission on 19^th January 2008, Saturday. So we had exactly 3 and a half days to erect the panthal. This was the shortest time we had in my 6 years experience setting up a thaneer panthal. For your info, we have to make the panthal ready to serve the devotees before the ratham or chariot passes by on the evening of Thaipusam eve. So what to do, by hook or crook we have to get it done. But even before this we had lots of meeting and discussion prior to panthal setup.
Oooops, forgot something…guys, in order to setup a thaneer panthal, the first thing you must have is MONEY!!!MONEY!!! and MONEY!!! No MONEY, No TALK. Money for some panthal is fully aided by their respective companies, some partially and some are not at all. Thus, we were very unfortunate. For our panthal case, our company didn’t even spend a single penny. So in order to get the money we need to collect donations among employees. Not everyone can do that, you really need a trustworthy and devoted person to lead the collection. Here we were very lucky to have Saradevi akka as our treasurer. She really attracts money. Thousands of thanks to you akka.
Secondly, you must have a very dedicated secretary to disseminate messages among employees on meeting minutes, panthal setup status and any clerical job related to pantal setup. For this part, we were fortunate to have our cute Mogana@Moghi who did her part very well. Thanks to you Moghi.
Thirdly, you need a team of committed man to setup the Thaneer Panthal. Erecting the panthal is the toughest part and you need many masculine and creative thinking guys. No woman’s here please. This is solely meant for guys except for the kolam drawing. So for this part we had George Marvin, Thiva, Suresh Manian, Maniam anna, Suresh Kumar, Kalai anna, Palani, Kalidass anna, Maya, Bala, Alegesan, Kishen, Prakash, Wan anna, Ben, Kumaresan, Albert and etc. They did not waste their time; they just go around asking what they can do next. That is called commitment. In addition, for the Kolam part we were privileged to have Sella to lead us. Thousands of thanks to all of you guys.
Therefore, I call them the trinity. Without any of them, there is no panthal. If no panthal, then there is no service to the devotees. Hats of to you guys. So for each panthal, I believe that they had some committed team like this. Hats of to all the panthal setup committee.
After all this, then it’s all about preparing plus serving drinks and food to anybody in need starting from the evening of Thaipusam eve. Anybody and everybody can do this. We had Saradevi akka, Maliga akka, Karpagam akka, Easwari akka, Kasthuri, Indhira and the rest of the team doing it. Furthermore, this should be the main purpose of setting up the panthal other then providing a shed for the makals to sit and rest.
Finally yet importantly, thanks to all donors who have open heartedly contributed their hard earn money in the form of cash and goods.
Let me put everything into point form on what we did during our panthal setup from starting to the end.

• Erecting Awning (done by Awning vendors)
• Prepare The Main Board
• Framing work around the Awning ( done with bamboo or wood)
• Erecting the Main Board
• Getting Water supply and fixing pipes (representative from water department)
• Getting Electric supply (representative from electric department)
• Wiring and Fixing Lights for Awning and Main Board
• Framing Work for the Centre Decoration
• Wiring and Fixing Lights for Centre Decoration
• Centre Decoration
• Valle Marem, Torenam and Mattei preparations and setup
• Drawing and Painting Kolam (usually midnite of one day before chetti pusam)
• Setting up PA System ( morning of chetti pusam) this is not compulsory and it should be for the purpose of playing devotional songs and not cinema songs
• Getting Flower Pots from the nearby flower nursery ( morning of chetti pusam)
• Arrangement of Flower Pots for the centre decoration ( morning of chetti pusam)
• Deity placement on Centre Decoration ( morning of chetti pusam)
• House Keeping
• Preparing plus Serving Drinks and Food ( starting from chetti pusam)
• Dismantling the valle maren, torenem and mattei ( midnite of Thaipusan)
• Putting back the deities to rest ( midnite of Thaipusan)
• Dismantling the centre decoration ( midnite of Thaipusan)
• Dismantling Lights (next day)
• Dismantling the Main Board (next day)
• Dismantling Awning (next day, done by Awning vendors)

Let the photos do the talking now…

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