Pongal Festival

Pongal, the festival Thanksgiving to the Sun God for a plentiful harvest, is celebrated throughout Tamil Nadu around January 14th every year. In the agrarian society of Tamil Nadu, this is the original major festival celebrated from ancient times. So we used to get new clothes for Pongal. Our grandparents owned lots of lands and cattle and this festival is very important to the farming community of our state.

Actually this festival has some customs which are based on sound scientific principles of aintaining hygiene. It marks the end of the rainy season and the ensuing damp winter by which has given rise to mouldy patches on the roofs and walls of the dwellings. Traditionally you are supposed to clean the whole house from top to bottom (including all the clothes, blankets, beds and unused things reserved for occasions). All mattresses would be dried in the sun. Then the house will be given a whitewash. The whole house would be sparkling clean by the day of the festival.

The things to be discarded would include all organic use and throw articles like baskets and 'moram's made of bamboo sticks and mats made of reeds as they would have become mouldy at the end of the rainy season and the following cloudy winter. The day before Pongal is called 'Bhogi' and all these threadbare mats and baskets would be used to make a bonfire and disposed off.

On the evening of Bhogi we used to have elaborate special festival cooking comprising of many sweets and special meals. The next day was Pongal. In the morning the women would draw elaborate 'kolams' in front of the main entrance. It was a visual treat to view all the different patterns in front of each house, adorned with colour powders. We children would help the women to colour the kolam patterns and we would have got out of our beds early enough to do this, on our own! it was so very interesting and enjoyable to assist that creative art. In the centre a lump of cowdung would be kept. A pumpkin flower would be stuck on to a lump of cowdung kept in the centre of the kolam to add to its beauty.

In fact, all through the previous month of 'Margazhi' the beautiful kolams in front of all the houses used to give the women an opportunity to display their artistic skills, in the more than elaborate kolams required for this month in praise of Lord Krishna. Pumpkin flowers would be delivered by the farmhands every morning to adorn the kolams which used to be a different one each day. We children used to go around our street trying to judge which one was the most artistic/complicated/ new pattern etc., every morning. Our winter vacation would start just before the 25th of December. So we had the chance to appreciate all the Margazhi kolam in our grandparents' place. It is a temple town and most of the people conformed to all these traditional practices. In fact, every girl started saving all the new kolams she saw every year in a notebook/diary. This picture is from one of those diaries!

Of course the Age of Internet has information for everyone and the flollowing link is a good one for learning kolams, recommended by my daughter:

http://kolangal.kamalascorner.com/


For pongal festival our grandmother would lead all the ladies in our street to bring water from the River Cauvery nearby. They would each take a 'kudam', a pot made of brass, silver or even mud- and after bathing in the river they would bring back water in the pots. This water would be used for cooking the Pongal which was to be offered to the Sun God that day.

The previous week our grandfather who believed in making anything from scratch, would have prepared five blocks made of bricks and mud, dried in the sun. These would be arranged in the centre of the 'mutram' on a bed of sand (square of courtyard inside the house, open to the sky) inside the house in a pattern that made them into two woodstoves. (Pongal, the rice offering of the festival, is traditionally prepared under the open sky, not inside the kitchen.) The sand would protect the floor of the courtyard from the heat and by placing the firewood in the two openings between the blocks, two stoves were ready to function. He would also bring home a big bunch of paddy stalks and tie it on the roof of the front 'thinnai' where the sparrows would make a meal of it flying in and out of the house to feed. The women would draw elaborate kolams of rice flour which would feed the ants. This practice of feeding birds and ants taught the children to respect and live with nature, along the course of the festival.

We children would gather all the dry twigs, dry coconut trees' leaves, coconut shells etc which made very good fuel for the fire, from the backyard where a coconut grove and various trees grew. Grandmother would have consulted the astrologer to know the most auspicious time for cooking the Pongal rice. At the time she would keep the new mudpots (you should use only new pots) on the two stoves. She would shape a lump of cowdung on a brick in the courtyard and adorn it with 'arugampul' and flowers. This was the symbolic God for this festival. After doing camphor 'arathi' she would put the burning camphor on the twigs in the temporary stoves and start the fire. She would throw a small bit of the paddy stalk (vaikkol). When it started turning black from the heat, she would announce the pots were heated enough forthe cooking to follow. Now a mixture of milk and water would be poured in the pots. When it started boiling and sometimes flowing over the kids would start shouting 'Pongalo Pongal!'.

The newly harvested rice would be added into the two pots and cooked on the fire which was kept burning by feeding various indigenous materials gathered from the backyard. After much begging, we children would also feed the fire with the twigs etc., I remember a sort of competition to throw the coconut shells in the fire as they burnt very brightly all of a sudden, after reaching the burning point in a matter of minutes. Small thrills, never forgotten! Again we would keep shouting 'Pongalo Pongal' every time the pots were overflowing. Literally 'Pongal' means 'overflowing'. As it is a thanksgiving to the Gods for a bountiful harvest, this tradition had been followed through the ages.

When the big pot is cooked, grandmother would keep the rice in the big pot as it was, bland and white, cooked to a pulp. This was called 'Pongal' Now she would add jaggery, ghee, cashews and dry grapes to the smaller pot and flavour it with cardamom. This was the 'sarkarai Pongal', the sweet dish. After taking it off the heat, she would cook a stew of mixed vegetables consisting of the fresh harvest of the season. This was the side dish for the plain pongal. After my grandmother offered the two pongals to the Sun God, by showing burning camphor kept on a plate towards the sky., we would all sit for the meals consisting of the two pongals and vegetable stew. By this time all our excitement in the proceedings of the festival would have been exhausted and we would gobble up the food and run off to play.

The next two days were also part of this festival. They deserve a separate blog each!
Watch this space!