A quick lookup in the dictionary, the word pain means:
painnoun1 she endured great pain suffering, agony, torture, torment, discomfort.2 a pain in the stomach ache, aching, soreness, throb, throbbing, sting, stinging, twinge,shooting pain, stab, pang, cramps; discomfort, irritation, tenderness.3 the pain of losing a loved one sorrow, grief, heartache, heartbreak, sadness, unhappiness,distress, desolation, misery, wretchedness, despair; agony, torment, torture, via dolorosa.4 informal : that child is a pain. See nuisance .5 (pains) : he took great pains to hide his feelings care, effort, bother, trouble.verb1 her foot is still paining her hurt, cause pain, be painful, be sore, be tender, ache, throb, sting,twinge, cause discomfort; informal kill one.2 the memory pains her sadden, grieve, distress, trouble, perturb, oppress, cause anguish to.
During Thaipusam, the kavadi bearers definitely endure a great deal of pain. Imagine having hooks pierced through your body. We are not talking about one, but a sizeable number. In addition to that, those hooks are attached to ropes which are then pulled by another person. One would imagine that such feat will be extremely noisy (from the scream) and bloody!
But – somewhat fascinating to see is that, the bearers are spiritually connected to some other thing. They somewhat able to endure the pain and able to stop the blood from gushing out. Scientifically, I would not be able to say anything. Then again – we just take this as a fascinating feat…
As per my previous few pictures during Thaipusam, all the pictures are geotagged.