The Tamil Story - Pongal Celebration

The Tamil Festival, celebrating the most important person and it's associated God, the farmer and the Sun.

The Evening Before:

As part of the rituals, we clean and level our entrance with a coating of the cow's dung. For those of you who are unfamiliar about this, cow dung is an antiseptic and all things and forms enter the house through the entrance. Spreading the entrance with a natural source of antiseptic is aligned with nature.

We use ground rice flour to to make rangoli, that serves as a meal to sparrows, squirrel and the finer granules are taken by the ants.

The doors are decorated with turmeric, vermilion, mango leaves. There's another bundle with two local variety of flowers and neem leaves.

On the day of Pongal:

We wake up and make two or three variety of boiled rice, pongal being the over flowing water and milk from the vessel, decorate the puja room, take the harvest from our garden/backyard/field, and along with the boiled rice, offer it all to the great visible God to our naked eyes, The Sun, who with his light is responsible for all forms of life, plants and it's produce.

It's a thank you note to the Sun and it's labor, the farmer whom we thank for the food that is the most basic need and keeping us alive and healthy.

Wishing you and your family a very happy pongal.

உங்களுக்கும் உங்கள் குடும்பத்தில் அனைவருக்கும் இனிய பொங்கல் திருநாள் நல்வாழ்த்துக்கள்.

Love,