Today is the first day of Navaratri. Over these nine days, houses in Thiruvallikeni (Triplicane) keep golu like houses everywhere else. But here people also invite the goshti, the group that recites the Divya Prabandham at the temple, to come home. They stand before the golu and recite one particular work: Thirumangai Azhwar’s Siriya Thirumadal.

Someone asked me for a recording of it, so I recorded myself reciting it at home.

The choice probably comes from the temple. Navaratri in Thiruvallikeni is Vedavalli Thayar’s utsavam. She has a purappadu every evening, and the goshti that walks with her recites the Madal, as it does on her Friday purappadu through the year. People call it the Madal goshti.

It is a strange poem to recite in front of a row of dolls, though.

A madal is the last resort of a rejected lover in old Tamil poetry. He makes a horse out of palmyra stalks, gets on it, and goes through the streets telling the whole town what his beloved has done to him, until she or her family give in out of shame. The Tolkappiyam, the old Tamil grammar, is clear that only men do this. A woman is not supposed to, however much she is in love.

Thirumangai Azhwar wrote his in a woman’s voice. Parakala Nayaki begins by saying that of all the things people live for, love is the only one she has any use for. Then she tells her story. A man was dancing with pots in the street, and she went out to watch. After that she was lovesick: she lost her colour, and grew so thin that her bangles slipped off. Her mother, worried, called a fortune-teller to find out what was wrong. The fortune-teller tossed a few grains of paddy in a winnow and gave her answer. Do not be afraid, she said, I know who has done this to your daughter. He is the one who measured this world, who brought Lanka down to dust, who held up a hill against the rain, who stole the butter and got tied to a mortar for it. Now that she knows who the dancer is, Parakala Nayaki says what she will do. She will go to every one of his towns and ride the madal.

பேராயிரமும் பிதற்றிப் பெருந்தெருவே
ஊராரிகழிலும் ஊராதொழியேன் நான்
வாரார் பூம்பெண்ணை மடல்

pērāyiramum pidhaRRip perundheruvē
ūrār igazhilum ūrādhu ozhiyēn nān
vārār pūm peṇṇai maḍal

Down the big street, babbling his thousand names. Let the town laugh at me. I will not stop until I have ridden the madal.

That is what gets recited at the golu. Navaratri is the women’s festival, and the golu is the most well-behaved thing in the house. The men of the goshti stand in front of it and recite a man’s poem, written in a woman’s voice, about the one thing a woman was told she must not do. I have written about her thudukku before. This is the same woman.

The fortune-teller’s list is also more or less what is on the steps: the Dasavataram set, Krishna with his hand in the butter pot. The dolls sit there quietly, and the poem tells you what he has been up to.