सनातन पुस्तकालय Sanatan Cultural Library

Paidithalli — 'golden mother' — is the gramadevata of Vizianagaram, and her story is bound to the town's Pusapati royal family. Tradition holds that Paidithalli was a devout princess of that house in the eighteenth century, sister to the ruler in the era of the famous Battle of Bobbili. Grieving the bloodshed of the war, she is said to have given up her life in the great tank of the town, and afterwards to have appeared in a dream announcing that she would dwell there as its protecting goddess; an image recovered from the Pedda Cheruvu tank was enshrined on its bank. Two temples serve her — the older Vanam Gudi and the Chaduru Gudi by the tank — and the town regards her as its living elder sister, consulted before ventures and thanked after harvests. Her jatara, falling in the weeks after Dasara, is among the largest folk-goddess festivals of coastal Andhra, drawing devotees from across the neighbouring districts.

The festival's rituals begin well before the great day, with the Tolellu procession of decorated ceremonial poles opening the jatara season. The sirimanu itself — a tall, tapering tree trunk — is not chosen by men: tradition holds that the goddess reveals its tree to the chief priest in a dream, and it is located, felled with worship, and brought to the town. On the first Tuesday after Vijayadashami the trunk is mounted on a chariot as a great flexible lever. The pujari, having fasted and prepared, is seated in a small frame at its springing tip, many feet above the streets, holding symbols of the goddess. The chariot is then drawn three times along the route between the fort and the temple, the pole bowing and rising with the motion, while enormous crowds line roofs and roadsides, throwing bananas up to the priest as offerings and receiving his blessing as the goddess's own. Folk performances, the Tolellu, and the white-and-red sea of devotees make the day north Andhra's proudest spectacle.

The Sirimanotsavam belongs wholly to Vizianagaram — the dream-chosen tree, the tank, the route between fort and temple cannot be transplanted, and no equivalent event exists in Canada. For Telugu families from north coastal Andhra now in Ottawa, the connection is kept in honest, practical ways. The event is telecast and streamed widely each year; since it unfolds through the Indian afternoon, it lands in the early morning hours in Ottawa, and many families record or replay it together. Households that keep Ammavaru traditions mark the Tuesday with a simple pooja to the goddess at home — turmeric, kumkum, bananas as naivedyam, echoing the offerings thrown to the sirimanu priest. Some send offerings or donations to the temple through family, and those visiting Andhra in the Dasara–Deepavali window sometimes plan travel so the jatara falls within the trip. Telling children the story of the town's goddess-sister keeps the bond alive across the distance.