Millions of women gathered on the streets of Trivandrum, the capital of the southern Indian state of Kerala, on Wednesday to cook food for their favourite goddess in what is billed as "the largest congregation of women in the world". (Photos: PK Anand and Haris Kuttipuram; Text: Ashraf Padanna)

Clad in traditional Keralan saris, the devotees come mainly from Kerala and the neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu.

They visit the city at the end of the 10-day annual festival and cook the "pongala" offering for Hindu goddess Kannagi, the presiding deity at the Attukal Bhagavathy temple.

The offering is prepared without a break using rice, jaggery and coconut on makeshift hearths set up along the city roads and lanes. It takes around three to four hours to complete it.

The devotees come to seek the blessings of the goddess for the health and prosperity of their families.

Hindu devotees pray and prepare rice porridge in the streets surrounding the temple.

Officials said they believed 3.5 million women participated in the festival on Wednesday.

Guinness Worlds Records certified the crowd strength was 1.5 million when it was assessed for the first time in 1997. In 2009, the turnout was 2.5 million and in 2010, festival organisers said it was 3 million.

Organising the festival is an elaborate logistical feat: 5,000 policemen and an equal number of volunteers were deployed to control the crowd. Some 265 priests positioned themselves at different points to sprinkle holy water on the pongala.