Mangalore: Thousands of Gowda Saraswat devotees of Sri Venkataramana pulled the huge decorated attractive car in the afternoon of Thursday, the 5th day of an annual Car Festival on the brand new road laid on Car Street in front of the Sri Venkataramana Temple.
On Friday the Festival concludes with Okkuli, a holy bath of the deity and its devotees with coloured waters, then a last noon meal, and a music concert (vocal) by a lady singer at night.
The significance of Okkuli (coloured water bath) on tired volunteers and devotees anxious to revel in divine pursuits cannot be downplayed. Of course, most of the outstation devotees would have departed after the Car-pulling ceremony on the newly laid out road yesterday. But local devotees, strictly private and wanting to maintain that privacy from public eyes, would happily join in the palanquin parade of the idol on the short routes (lanes) around the temple and have coloured waters powered over them (local devotees) on the outer ring roads of the historic temple.
Generally the visitors and onlookers do not bother about the event of bath in the public lanes around noon on the final day of such a Car Festival, as in Vitla, Manjeshwar, Udupi or Mangalore, the idea being that the hard working volunteers at the festival all five days need relaxation and fun by a bath in coloured waters on streets near and around the main temple. The locality also mostly belongs to GSB people in high-rise buildings or old Mangalore Tiles houses.
The dinner at noon or afternoon also in strictly private, but the music recital programme could be open to those who wish to listen in a hall or in the square behind the stone temple today, the last day of GSB Car Festival.

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