Narrow mud streets, all cleanly swept and wiped with cow dung. Houses that are closely built sharing common walls.Brightly colored rangolis stretching through the entire width of the houses, competeting to capture the eyes of the people.
Hey, wait! Want to visit my village and know the complete scenario of how we celebrate pongal, the harvest festival of our land? Come on then, be ready for a long post. Walk back with me to the month of marghazi. Marghazi is the tamil month prior to the month of thai. The day one of the month, thai is celebrated as pongal festival. But the festive fever will begin from marghazi. The month marghazi is considered as dedicative month for worship. All would start early in the morning in this month , go for temples and so ladies would lit lamps in their house fronts and put beautiful rangolis all thro’ the month. (Rangoli is an art form of drawing patterns on the floor with rice flour . This was done in olden days so as to feed the poor creatures like ants and birds ) Also they would start their ‘annual mega cleaning camp’. They would clean every inch of the house and repaint the walls. It would be like a ‘complete make over’. Also on a particular auspicious day in marghazi, all would go to the lakefront to dig and bring new red soil to mold their new stove for the pongal. Also on yet another good day, they would all order for new mud pots from the potter.
On the dawn of pongal , all the people in the village except the busy mothers will march out to the local hill temple, to welcome the rising sun. They would show karpoor aarti to the sun god and return to home to help their moms . Mostly all our houses in our village have a mutram, an open corridor where you can enjoy the sun , rain and the moon light . In this centre of the house , they would spread sand as a bed for the newly made stoves , in which they ignite the fire with the holy karpooram and cook pongal in the new pots and freshly harvested rice. When they start cooking in the new pots, they would boil milk and as it soars up, all people in the house would say aloud ‘pongal o pongal’ and praise the sun god for the gift of prosperity. Thus the first day of the thankgiving celebration is dedicated to the sun god , the prime factor for a good harvest. Typically the day’s menu would be venpongal (cooked and mashed rice ), payaru (mashed spicy whole moong dal ) , and pusanikai kootu(squash lentil medley).
The second day is to thank the cattle which helped in farming. The cows are given a special ‘bubble’ bath in the nearby lakes , their horns colored in variety and decorated with ribbons.
The third day is called the ‘kaanum pongal’ where the people set out to meet friends and relatives. In cities, this day is much enjoyed and all the theatres, restraunts, and beaches are crowded. In our village, whereas the scene is slightly different. All the people will get together around the hill temple and have a great time. It is a big fund raising festival for the stall keepers, a great oppurtunity for the teenager girls to show off their new pavadai thavani and a great time for the teenage boys to appreciate all the ‘beauty’ on the earth .
In a nut shell, pongal is a month long preparation and a week long celebration for all of us. I really miss such a festival and could only write memories about it.
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Hi Lakshmiammal,
While reading your post, even memories starting sailoring the festival celebrations in India..
Your poojai picture (vinayagar statueand nandhi) everything is similiar as in our hometown. I remembered ours…
Hi Lakshmiammal Wishing you a very happy Pongal. Viji
hi lkashmi ammal
dealted pongal wishes to u ….
soory ammal
there is a spelling mistake in my comment….delated wishes to u…
I love the pics!Hope you had a good day yesterday!:))
your writing is very evoctive. i spent four wondeful years in chennai and i still have fond memories of pongal which your writing brings back. also love you pictures.
Happy Pongal !
Happy Pongal to you and your Family… Pictures are very colorful and nice, good write-up too..
Nidhi.
How about Boghi pandigai? Do you clean and burn unwanted garbage on that day in your village? Pongal Vazhthukkal to you and your family.
Hi LakshmiAmmal,
Nice writeup about pongal and great pictures. Kaanum pongal vazhthukkal..
Hi Lashmiammal Wishing you a happy pongal too. viji
What a nice write up. Loved reading your post..Wishing you and your family a Happy Pongal.. Hope you had a good one
-Sushma
Hope you had a very happy pongal.And about knitting, i can send you some links for learning knitting.They have even video demo for knitting.Just let me know..ok
Hope receive entry from you for AFAM soon.Thanks in advance
Thanks lakshmi, for the very informative write up on Pongal. Nice reading and got to know a lot too, the pics were lovely too
What do you do here in the US ?
Had guests all long so I could not respond immediately to the wishes! Thank you all ! Hope you all enjoyed the long weekend and pongal!
BTW I borrowed the pictures from http://www.pongalfestival.org, I wish I had my own images to post.
Hi Ash,
On bhogi, we do burn unwanted things in the early morning. Every street starts a fire on the day and there would be a competetive spirit between the street lads so as to see who can rise the fire to the maximum height.We used to play aloud cine songs early in the morning to wake up the sleeping beauties and chit chat on the thinnai(sitting benches in the front of the houses) till late morning when there are only ashes in that place. Thanks for reminding me about bhogi!
Hi Lakshmi,Belated Pongal wishes to you and your family!Have been busy so haven’t been able to visit all the blogs..
Lovely post about pongal… is it okay if I link this from my blog?
Lovely post about pongal… is it okay if I link this from my blog? Happy Pongal to you and yours.
gr8 wrk