Pongal - Walk down the memory lane...

Pongal starts at least a week ahead of the real day in my village when I was little. My dad buys a bunch of Pongal Vaazhthukkal (greeting cards) and me and my sister sign every one them and send them out to every one of our cousins and friends. I wonder even in those days of hardship my dad took the time to teach us the value of maintaining relationships and remembering them every pongal time. Thank you dad, for all the values you had taught us.

My mom, athai and grandma will clean all the anda kundas at home including all the unused pathiram pandam. Those were the days our palm roof bungalow had a mud floored living room! The older women use mattu chani and kari (coal power, what do you call mezhuhal?) to tharai mezhuhal, two days before pongal day. On Bohi night comes the biggest decoration ever, drawing makkolam on the blacked, newly chani mezhuhia floors. Man the beauty, all the heady smells.... It was a smell very unique to the south Indian villages. Our neighbor aunties and my family ladies would have competition in kolam drawing. What imagination they had in creating Kolam designs!! Unbelievable colors and intricate designs unfold in front of you in minutes. I wish I had a camera to record all those memories as a child.

The morning of pongal dawns very early before the Sun God has time to take his first wink, with another Kolam session on the front, this time colorful rangolis adorn our front yards. Then comes all new cloths and yes, Pongal! Awesome delicious mommy only can make kind of pongal, she actually doesn't do any magic but always my mom's pongal is the best. Pongal - typically every familymakes two paanai pongal, that is make two types of pongal - one sweet - made with rice, milk, jaggery, pacha karpuram, cardamom, cashewnuts and raisins. (But real village pongal is very simple, yet soooo delicious, made with rice, jaggery, channa dal and coconut). The other kind rice, a sprinkle of channa dal and grated coconut - called white pongal. We make it either in the front yard or in the kitchen and adorn the pongal pathiram with fresh turmeric plant around the neck. Sugarcane and fresh ginger are all offered to Sun God - symbolically thanking him for the bounty he offers humanity. Then we hog on the pongal and chew on lots of long sugarcane's. I remember having races with my sister to see who finishes the long sugarcane first. Inevitable yours truly wins in all eating contests with my sister back home :). The lunch menu on Pongal day looks somehting like this - Sambhar made with all vegetables, Rasam, Kara Kuzhambu, Avial, Pachadi, Vazhaka fry, Vada, Appalam and twokinds of Pongal. I only used to enjoy the food and forget the rest as a daughter, now being the mom, I realize the time and amount of work behind such extensive delicacies.

Where I come from, Pongal is a three day affair. Next day to Pongal is Mattu Pongal. We typically celebrate the farm animals. All the bulls, cows and even goats are washed and decorated with garlands. Generally the whole village joins in one big arena and cook pongal together. This pongal is sooooooooooooooo yummy and my all time favourite. They add jaggery, freshly grated coconut and ripe bananas to cooked white rice on plantain leaves and mix it. Oh yummmmmy! Mattu Pongal used to be big grand affair where all our cousins get together at my maternal grandparents huge house until i was like 13 years old. Thatha passed away and so did all those traditions, family get together and all the fun.

Third day of pongal is called kanu and we make pongal - agian sweet kind to celebrate the kanya pongal - young virgins in the family. Young girls get new cloths and money as presents from the elders on Kanya pongal day. Evening is the fun part. All the young and old alike dress up and meet in the center of the village. Many weddings gets fixed! Oh I can see those days of fun! there is so much music and so much dance - kummi, kolattam etc etc. We can see all folk arts vibrant and alive in that Pongal celebration on the third day.

Life was beautiful. We knew so many family members and extended relatives. We knew how to get together and share the joys and sorrows. As children we were exposed our very traditional, meaningful festivals and we had grandparents around to tell us stories - even if all the reasons my patti or ammachi told me were not authentic reasons for a celebration, at the very least I had them around, to lean on, to look up to and take refuge in.