Vedachandur, Dindigul district in Tamil Nadu celebrates an ancient prayer festival called Nila Penn which is also known as moon girl or Nila girl. The festival is celebrated to boost farming and welcome rain.
Devinayakkanpatti village celebrates this festival every year in January or February on the full moon night.
The preparation for the festival starts a week before wherein all the senior members come together in a common place to select the ‘Nila Girl’ of the year. For that, a lottery method is conducted wherein all the names of the girls are put together and randomly a girl’s name is chosen.
The selected Nila girl of the year is treated like a goddess for a week and has to stay in the temple till the full moon night. Everyone then offers fruits, milk and gifts to the girl every day.
On the full moon night women all devotees worship the moon and the Nila girl by singing special songs and after that Prasad is distributed among the devotees and clay lamps are lit near the temple pool.
Like every year this year, a 7-year-old girl named “Kanishka” was adorned with new dresses and garlands by the people. The Nila girl festival took place on January 22.