Attukal Pongala festival

The globally renowned festival of Attukal Pongala is scheduled to culminate on February 22, 2027, at the historic Attukal Bhagavathi Temple in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. Celebrated over ten magnificent days, this sacred event holds a Guinness World Record as the largest annual gathering of women worldwide. The festival commences with the ritualistic singing of the Kannaki Charitam to invoke the goddess, building up to the grand ninth day when a massive 7-kilometer radius around the temple transforms into an open-air sacred ground. Women from all walks of life, regardless of caste or religion, line the city streets to light brick hearths and cook 'Pongala'—a traditional offering of rice, jaggery, and coconut boiled in earthen pots. The ceremony concludes beautifully as hundreds of priests sprinkle holy water over the vast sea of hearths amid an aerial showering of flowers, making it an unforgettable spectacle of pure faith and unity.