Uma Gunasilan（在线收听）

BBC Learning English
People and Places
Uma Gunasilan

William: Hello and welcome to People and Places –

the programme that introduces you

to people as interesting as you are!

My name’s William Kremer. This week we’re going to find

out about an interesting festival that takes place every

year, and at the same time we’re going to practise

listening comprehension. To tell us all about this

festival,
we’re going to hear from a young woman called Uma. Listen

to Uma introduce herself and try to hear when she’s from.

Uma: My name is Uma Gunasilan. I am a Malaysian…of

Indian origin. And er… I’m the sixth generation born in

Malaysia - my family, about six generations ago came from

India to Malaysia to work… and er… we’ve been there ever

since.

William: Well, Uma described herself as a Malaysian

…but she said she was ‘of Indian origin’. If someone

says she is of Indian origin, it can mean she was born in

India – but here, Uma means that her family is from India,

originally. She is the sixth generation born in Malaysia –

so her family left India a long time ago!

For Uma and other Tamil Hindus in Malaysia, a very

important festival every year is Thaipusam, which takes

place in January or February. It’s a very personal sort of

festival, as Uma explains:

Uma: Thaipusam is a very religious kind of festival: it

’s about you and God and how you want to reach Him and how

you want to let go of your sins and you know
have an agreement with Him, you know, something like that.
 
William: ‘Thaipusam is about you and God and how

you want to reach Him’, Uma says.

So, it’s your decision exactly how much you do for

Thaipusam – and what you do. As Uma puts it: ‘you have an

agreement with God’.

Uma: Thaipusam is a very religious kind of festival: it

’s about you and God and how you want to reach Him and how

you want to let go of your sins and you know have an

agreement with Him, you know, something like that.

William: Uma also mentions ‘letting go of sin’ –

so at Thaipusam people do things to show God that they

regret doing bad things. But they also do things to thank

God for keeping His side of the agreement:

Uma: If you say, usually it’s, it’s something that

happened the year before or some…some… few years ago –

where you promised God, saying, ‘If I get that job’ or ‘

If I get a child’, ‘If my father lives through this heart

attack, then I will, you know, come to you and I will do

this for you’.

William: So, what sort of things do people do at

Thaipusam? Listen to Uma and see how many things you can

hear.

Uma: Erm, for a person who wants to take part, I mean,

seriously in… in… in… in a… I don’t know, letting go

of his sins and reaching God during that period of time…

he has to go through about forty days of being a vegetarian

and abstaining from er… any sexual encounters, eating

garlic even and things like that – for forty days, he does

that, he doesn’t even sleep on a mattress, he sleeps on

the floor.

William: Uma said that if a person really wants to

take part seriously they have to go through - they have to

suffer - about forty days of abstaining from things. If you

abstain from something you don’t do it. So to let go of

their sins, these
 
devotees abstain from meat - they are vegetarian for forty

days. They also abstain from any sexual encounters and from

eating garlic. Uma says that they even sleep on the floor

instead of their comfortable beds!

At the end of those forty days, the devotees meet at a

temple where they do things that normally cause pain. This

includes piercing their bodies – putting sharp objects

through their skin.

Uma: He could do one piercing, from one cheek to the

other, he could do a whole lot of piercing all through his,

his body… he could walk on, on slippers that have nails…

William: While people are piercing their bodies,

they are in a trance, a special state of being that means

they don’t feel pain. A trance. But what happens after

they remove the piercings?

Uma: Well I would have thought that it would at least

leave a mark or a scar because they pierce their cheeks,

but interestingly I’ve never seen a scar at all on a

person who’s done that!

William: So… have you ever done this, then?

Uma: No. Never… no!

William: Are you not tempted to? It sounds really

really good!

Uma: Really?

William: So – Uma says she hasn’t ever pierced

herself during Thaipusam – but of course it’s still

possible to take part in the festival in other ways.
 

If you’d like to download a script from today’s

programme, or find out more

about today’s language, check out the People and Places

webpage on BBC Learning English dot com. You’ll also see

some links to find out more about Thaipusam. Goodbye!