Veerampattinam Car Festival

The largest single religious gathering in the Puducherry region, and one of very few temple festivals anywhere in India important enough that the government declares a public holiday for it.

Sengazhuneer Amman, the goddess of the red water lily, is the guardian deity of Veerampattinam's fishing community. The festival is her annual honouring by a village that goes to sea for a living.

Six Fridays of escalating ritual. The goddess is processed each week; on the main Fridays a tall timber temple car is dressed with flowers, plantain stems and cloth, the idol installed, and the whole thing hauled through the village by hand.

The temple car is dressed and hauled through the village streets by the community; processions run on each of the six Fridays.

The goddess protects the fishing village and the boats that go out from it.

A village guardian-deity festival of the Tamil coast, grown large enough that the territory's administration built its calendar around it.