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mcgillianaire
It's that time of the year when Hindus all over the world celebrate their version of the harvest festival. For Tamils, Pongal (lit: boils over or spillover) is their most important festival and this year more than 60 million of us will be celebrating our version of thanksgiving all over the world. Pongal is a celebration of the prosperity associated with the end of the harvest season and is celebrated for four days from the last day of the Tamil month Maargazhi (Dec/Jan) to the third day of Thai (Jan/Feb). [Tamil Calendar]
Unfortunately, it is more than twenty years since I last had the pleasure of actually being in Tamil Nadu during the festivities, but even while growing up in Oman I would look forward to it for two main reasons: my sister and I would always get a new pair of clothes and my mum would cook us all my favourite Tamil sweets and savouries.
In fact the 'boiling over' that takes place and gives us the name of the festival comes from the sweet boiling rice that is made by mixing it with milk and jaggery in pots topped with brown sugar, cashew nuts and raisins. The contents are then allowed to boil over and as soon as that happens, the tradition is to shout "Ponggalo Pongal" (see Subject above) while blowing a conch. It is considered good luck to watch the pot boiling over and that's how the festival gets its name and fame.
In the absence of my mum and lack of skills in boiling my own sweet rice dish, I will have to stay content with merely heating up a ready-to-eat packet of a different Tamil sweet dish. In years gone by, my mum would send a packet of pongal with me on my way back to university from Oman after the Christmas break and I would open it on Pongal. Oh well, maybe next year! Happy Pongal!
Sugarcane branches are used as decoration for the prayer-offering set up. We grew sugar cane in our house in Oman!
The traditional plates used in southern India are banana leaves upon which you can find the items used for the prayer (coconut shells, bananas and the Pongal dish itself - the yellow blob in the bottom-center of the leaf). The patterns on the ground are called kolam.
