SELANGOR, MALAYSIA, January 24, 2016 (Malay Mail): More than a million Hindus in Malaysia celebrated the colorful Thaipusam festival today, thronging temples to display their devotion with wince-inducing body piercing and offerings to the Deity Murugan. Hundreds of thousands converged on the Batu Caves an important religious site for Tamil Hindus on Kuala Lumpur’s outskirts with many walking up to 10 hours to the site, capped by a final 272-step climb to its limestone hilltop shrine.
Many show their fervor through mind-over-matter feats of body piercing including long skewers stuck through their flesh in a form of penance, or by bearing the elaborately decorated home-made frames called “kavadi.” Kavadi can weigh as much as 220 lbs. and are typically affixed to a person’s body using sharp metal spikes dug into the skin.
Many endured sweltering heat to follow the 15-kilometre (nine-mile) procession of a silver chariot from a temple in central Kuala Lumpur to the caves. Most of Malaysia’s roughly 29 million people are Muslim, but the country also has more than two million ethnic Indians.
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