Women in thousands perform Pongala ritual

T�PURAM: Thousands of devotees today performed the pongala ritual in one of world\'s largest religious congregations of women at the famed Attuakal Bhagavathi temple here. Cutting across class, caste and even religious barriers, women of all ages squatted in an area of seven km around the temple and boiled the rice-jaggery-coconut \'pongala\' in fresh earthen pots on make-shift brick hearths.