Dharmapuri: While the entire Dharmapuri district is getting ready to celebrate Diwali, one village alone remains without any sign of the festival and is immersed in its daily work.
Alagattu village comes under Vattuvan Alli panchayat in Pennagaram taluk. This village is located on a hilltop where road access has not yet been provided. More than 150 people from over 35 families live in this village. All the families here own agricultural land.
However, since there is no irrigation facility, they do not cultivate cash crops or horticultural crops. For their food needs, they grow rainfed crops such as millets including ragi, along with cowpea, red gram, sesame, and groundnut.
The villagers, who worship Sri Basavanna Swamy and Matheswara Swamy as their family deities, do not take part in Diwali celebrations.
In Dharmapuri district, children in the plains and nearby hill villages begin bursting crackers a week in advance to signal the arrival of Diwali. But Alakattu village has never experienced the sound or smell of fireworks in the name of Diwali.
Instead, the villagers celebrate the Monday that falls in the last week of the month of Karthigai as the Deepa festival. On that day, the celebration begins at the Sri Basavanna Swamy temple, located on the outskirts of the village.
At the end of the night worship, a free meal is served at the temple, consisting of ragi kali, rice, and avarai dal curry.
Then, accompanied by the sounds of traditional musical instruments, there is a procession in which only women walk around the village carrying a torch mounted on green bamboo, followed by a traditional dance performance.
As the final event of the festival, around 3 a.m., a ritual of lighting lamps and offering prayers takes place in the temple premises.
For this, lamps are lit in 101 earthen lamps on a platform set up inside the temple by splitting green bamboo. The Deepa festival concludes with this lamp worship.
In this festival, relatives from the surrounding hill villages, including Petta Mugilalam, Thottamanji, Kamagiri, and Kodakarai, gather in large numbers and take part in the celebrations.
Speaking about this, some residents of Alakattu village said, “Even today, without road facilities, we have to walk from the foothills through dense forest where wild animals such as bison, elephants, and bears roam.
Because of this, we are far behind economically. Since simply getting through life is a challenge, our ancestors avoided celebrating festivals like Diwali that others celebrate. We follow the same practice. The Deepa Thiruvizha is Alakattu village’s Diwali festival,” they said.