With the sani pradosham event taking place ahead of Maha Sivarathri, devotees swarmed in large numbers on Saturday evening to Sri Kapali Temple and that night, it was a packed to the walls scene.
By 10pm, a good 90 minutes ahead of the first Kaalam Abhisekam, there was not an inch of space left to sit inside the temple.
The queues for Ambal and Swami darshan curved their way to the rajagopuram. And outside of the queues, devotees found every corner they could to sit and recite slokas through the night. As they chanted Shivaya Namaha in groups the fervour of the occasion spread all around.
Service and Police personnel were kept busy through the night as the crowd continued to swell. The vehicular traffic was quite well managed around the temple complex. Street vendors on the tank street made brisk business.
Newly appointed executive officer of the temple, Hariharan was seen giving instructions through the evening to his staff on ways to manage the crowd. He monitored the activity by walking around the temple complex to ensure that crowd management was under control and as planned.
By 7am on Sunday, Urbaser Sumeet staff landed up on East Tank Street to clean up the huge mounds of garbage that had piled up outside the temple complex. Inside the temple, the service personnel used long pipes to water-wash the prakara.
An hour later, it was back to the routine at the temple – with regular devotees having their morning darshan of swami and ambal.
The temple complex wore a clean look with hardly any indication of the presence of several thousands of people who were here the previous night.
– Reported by S. Prabhu
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