The Kerala Story: Mosque Hosts Hindu Devotees, Temple Conducts Iftar Party

In Palayam, barely a kilometre from the State Secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram, stands a remarkable symbol of Kerala’s syncretic ethos. A temple and a mosque share a common wall, their coexistence seamless and unremarkable to the daily passerby. Directly opposite them rises a church, atop which a statue of Jesus Christ stands with outstretched arms, as if blessing the city with peace and tranquillity.        It is a rare and powerful sight — one that reflects the pluralistic culture Kerala has long nurtured and proudly sustained.

On Tuesday, Thiruvananthapuram turned into a sea of devotion as tens of thousands of Hindu women thronged the state capital to take part in the Attukal Pongala, one of the largest gatherings of women for a religious ritual in the world.

The festival, centred around the Attukal Bhagavathy Temple, is dedicated to Attukal Amma, revered as a benevolent mother goddess. In an extraordinary display of faith and community spirit, women line the streets for kilometres, setting up makeshift brick hearths to cook pongala—a sweet rice porridge prepared with rice, jaggery and coconut—as an offering to the deity.

From the early hours of the morning, roads, courtyards and open grounds transform into temporary kitchens. The air fills with the aroma of jaggery and smoke as devotees, dressed mostly in traditional attire, wait for the auspicious moment when the temple priests light the main hearth, signalling the start of the ritual across the city.

The entire city is taken over by devotees, with government offices and educational institutions remaining closed to accommodate the unique festival, widely regarded as the largest gathering of women for a religious purpose in the country. As the ritual is exclusively for women, men step into the role of facilitators—managing logistics, arranging firewood and water, regulating traffic, and ensuring safety—quietly supporting the women as they perform the sacred observance.

This year, the festival coincided with the holy month of Ramadan. In a moving gesture of solidarity, the imam of the Palayam Juma Masjid issued an appeal to the Muslim community in the area.

Despite observing the fast from dawn to dusk, he urged believers to extend every possible help to the Hindu women participating in the Attukal Pongala. “We may be fasting as part of Ramadan, but we must ensure that the devotees receive water and all necessary assistance to perform their rituals peacefully. Pongala is being observed during the holy month of Ramadan this time as well. We must share the spirit of joy, fraternity and love that defines Ramadan with our sisters and their children who come here for Pongala,” said Imam P. V. Suhaib Maulavi.

His appeal quickly went viral, resonating far beyond the neighbourhood. On the day of the Attukal Pongala, authorities of the Palayam Juma Masjid and local Muslim residents enthusiastically distributed water and offered logistical support to the devotees lining the streets. Even while abstaining from food and drink themselves, they stood in service—an act many described as a powerful reminder of Kerala’s lived tradition of communal harmony.

“All the arrangements were made for the devotees. The mosque provided drinking water and light refreshments,” the Imam said. He added that members of the Muslim community around the Juma Masjid opened their homes and businesses to the women. Special toilet facilities were also arranged to ease the strain of spending long hours outdoors.

Just opposite the mosque stands the St. Joseph's Metropolitan Cathedral, which also extended assistance to the devotees.

“I have come from Kayamkulam, nearly a hundred kilometres away,” said Sharada, 63. “The mosque authorities were very helpful. This has been the case last year as well. The makeshift shelter and water they provided were of great help to devotees who had to perform the ritual under the scorching sun,” she added.

Though this has been the practice in the state for a long time, this time, Attukal Pongala and religious minorities hosting the devotees drew widespread praise online, against the backdrop of the controversy surrounding the film, The Kerala Story.  Suhaib Maulavi, stressed that Malayalis do not agree with the ideas the movie attempts to push. " Malayalis do not agree with the ideas the movie tries to push. It paints Keralams as divided, broken, and demonised, a narrative that is utterly false. If you want to know the real 'Kerala story,' look here: a mosque standing beside a temple and a church,” he said.

While minority places of worship in the capital opened their doors to Hindu devotees, north Kerala reciprocated with a gesture of goodwill.

In Kasaragod district, the centuries-old Sree Poobanam Kuzhi Temple hosted an iftar for fasting Muslims and members of other communities. Located at Thachangad near Kasaragod, the temple courtyard welcomed hundreds of devout Muslims who gathered there to break their fast during Ramadan. People from other religious groups also joined, turning the evening into a shared community moment rather than a strictly religious observance.

As dusk fell, Muslims assembled within the temple premises and broke their fast together—an uncommon yet deeply symbolic sight.

Temple authorities said the idea stemmed from a recent community feast organised at the shrine. “Because of Ramadan, many Muslims in the area could not take part in that feast. So we thought of organising an iftar for them,” they said, describing it as a simple gesture of inclusion and goodwill.

The reciprocal acts—mosques serving water to Pongala devotees in Thiruvananthapuram and a temple hosting iftar in Kasaragod—underscore Kerala’s enduring tradition of everyday communal harmony.

All these symbols of Kerala’s syncretic life must be celebrated at a time when fairy-tale narratives are being concocted to portray the state as a land of intolerance and forced religious conversions,” read a social media post that echoed the sentiments of many.

The post was widely seen as a rebuttal to the controversy surrounding The Kerala Story, which the Kerala government and major political parties have criticised for what they describe as a wrongful and distorted portrayal of the state.

Muslims and Christians together constitute nearly 48 per cent of Kerala’s population, a demographic reality often cited to underline the state’s long history of religious coexistence and cultural intermingling.