Wimbledon Chariot Competition: On Wednesday 18th August 2010 I went to Wimbledon to {photograph} one in every of London’s extra vibrant annual festivals, the procession by the Tamil group from the Shree Ganapathy Hindu Temple round their native streets.
The temple was opened right here in Effra Street, in a constructing that had been constructed as a mission corridor by Trinity Presbyterian Church, a ‘Scottish Church’ based in Wimbledon in 1883.
In 1887 they’d arrange a mission Sunday Faculty in South Wimbledon and numbers grew in order that they constructed St Cuthbert’s Corridor on Effra Road within the mid Eighteen Nineties. Round 194 this turned St Cuthbert’s District Church. On my 2010 put up I wrongly referred to as it Anglican moderately than Presbyterian.
The Church was nonetheless a celebration of Trinity when falling membership led to the choice in 1956 to promote the constructing to the Sir Cyril Black Belief, who renamed it Churchill Corridor. Black, who died in 1991, was MP for Wimbledon from 1950 to his retirement 1970 and was a strict Baptist, recognized for his far proper views and opposition to liberal reforms, however strongly supportive to the local people and a founding father of the Wimbledon Neighborhood Affiliation.
The corridor in 1981 turned the Shree Ganapathy Hindu Temple and its church corridor the Sai Mandir prayer corridor.
As I famous in 2010, “In addition to conventional temple actions for its Tamil group, the temple has a “extra holistic strategy to offering for the non secular, ethical and emotional wants of our devotees” with numerous talks, lessons and well being seminars. Along with the Sai Mandir it additionally takes half in a variety of group tasks within the London Borough of Merton and extra broadly, together with meals on wheels, meals for the homeless, and conservation work in addition to welcoming native youngsters, college students, academics and others to return and study Hinduism. Lately it has additionally labored to help Tamil refugees from Sri Lanka.“
On My London Diary in addition to the various photos there may be fairly a protracted introduction in regards to the occasion which concerned a procession across the space with statues of three of the Temple deities, two on chariots and one on a palanquin.
The chariots are pulled by crowds of worshippers, there are musicians, girls with bowls of flaming camphor and large numbers of coconuts, a lot of which had been flung onto rocks in massive wood packing containers and shatter, whereas others ricochet dangerously. All of us had been quickly lined in coconut milk.
Males stripped to the waist roll alongside the road holding coconuts in entrance of them. Folks current baskets of fruit and coconuts to the Temple priest on the chariot to be blessed and the priest distributes flower petals and different items.
It took a few hours for the procession to journey what would have been at most a ten minute stroll, after which celebrations had been to proceed contained in the Temple
I and my colleague who was additionally photographing the occasion had been made very welcome on the competition and invited to proceed inside and eat a meal, however we needed to depart. I’ve not returned as I felt my protection in 2010 had in all probability lined the occasion sufficiently and I’d solely been repeating myself. This yr, 2024, the competition was on Sunday 11 Aug 2024.
Far more on My London Diary at Wimbledon Chariot Competition, the place there may be additionally an account of one other Tamil Chariot Competition in Ealing.
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Tags: blessing items, camphor, Chariot Competition, chariots, Churchill Corridor, coconuts, Cyril Black, flaming camphor, Hindu, London, London Pictures, palanquin, peter Marshall, prayer corridor, procession, roll on road, Sai Mandir, Shree Ganapathy, smashing coconuts, South Wimbledon, Tamil, Temple, temple priest, Triniity, Wimbledon Chariot Competition
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