Many Happy returns..

May this season of harvest bring in a lot of prosperity and goodness into all our lives :)

Yen Inniya pongal Nalvazthukal and Happy Shankranthi :)

Pongal - The harvest festival # 3

The third day of Pongal is dedicated to cattle and is called Mattu Pongal. People offer prayers to the bulls, cows and other farm animals. Cows and bulls have always held a special place in India and are considered sacred. Cows give nourishing milk while bulls and oxen help plough the fields playing a very important role in harvesting especially in olden days.

Thus, Maatu Pongal is a day when cattle are given a well deserved day of rest and are given pride of place. Therefore the farmers honor their cattle friends by celebrating it as a day of thanks-giving to them.

On this special day cows are decorated with flowers ,their horns are painted with various colors and covered with shining metal caps, color beads and tinkering bells . They are also offered special food especially cooked for them and are taken around the villages with the people sitting on the carriages behind and enjoying the day.



Jallikatu(Bull fight) is also a part of the paatu pongal celebrations in various parts of the state.


The fourth and the final day of the pongal celebrations is the Kaanum pongal , this day is again dedicated to the sun god which has played a major part in giving some wonderful harvest to the farmers .

In certain parts of the state this day is also celebrated similar to Rakhsa Bandhan and Bhai Dhuj where women offer prayers for the wellbeing of their brothers.

And the most important event here is visiting relatives , friends and outing with family. So, you can find most of the entertainment centres, beach, shopping malls overflowing with people today.

So, thats how the four day pongal celebrations proceed in South India. To read how the first two days of pongal are celebrated click here and here.

Pongal - The harvest festival # 2

The second day of Pongal is known as 'Surya Pongal' and is dedicated to the Sun God. It is the day on which the celebration actually begins and is also the first day of the Tamil month Thai.

Women wake early on this day to create elaborate kolam patterns on the ground in front of their doorway or home. Kolam is created with colored rice flour placed on the ground carefully by using one's hand.

On this day the new rice is collected and cooked in pots until they over flow. It is this overflowing which means Pongal. This overflowing of rice is a joyous occasion, and the children and adults as well will shout out 'Pongal-o-Pongal!'

Unlike what you see in the picture, most of the house hold these days use stainless steel pots instead of clay pots

After which the prepared pongal and other food items and sugarcane which plays an important part in this festival are offered to god before one can eat.

The rice is cooked and prepared as a dish called pongal, which is rice with dhal and sugar. This Pongal variety is called venpongal, ven meaning white is made using milk and rice. Another variety is also prepared with dhal and jaggery (sweet), called chakara pongal, chakrai meaning sweet. To accompany the venpongal, people eat brinjal (eggplant) sambar (stew), vadai and spicy accompaniments.

Wishing all those of you who celebrate pongal a very safe and happy pongal!

* pics source - Internet

Pongal - The harvest festival # 1

Pongal is normally considered to be a dish more than a festival . If you think so you are not mistaken, a dish called pongal does exist. But, the pongal festival is a day in which pongal is mainly cooked from the freshly harvested rice .So, I believe thats how the festival got its name :)
Pongal is the most popular harvest festival in South India, especially Tamil Nadu. Pongal falls in the mid-January every year and marks the auspicious beginning of the sun's journey north wards.

The celebrations include drawing kolam ( a design made out of powdered rice and some times also color powders) , cooking , visiting relatives et all..

The pongal festival is celebrated for four days

This first day of the festival is called Bogi or Bohgi (is celebrated today) in the honor of "the god of clouds and rains- Indra" for the abundance of harvest and the prosperity brought to the land.

On Bhogi, people clean their homes and collect all unwanted goods . Keeping the home clean is one of the essential parts of the Pongal festival , so in places like my home cleaning starts almost a month ahead - if you remember we jus' repainted our home last month so that we could get it done before this festival.

On the eve of Pongal homes are decorated with kolams (designs made out of rice powder or liquid rice paste). Fresh harvest of rice, turmeric and sugar cane are brought from the field as preparation for the following day (but these days its bought from shops).

Another ritual observed on this day is Bhogi Mantalu(bon fire), when useless household articles are thrown into a fire made of wood and cow-dung cakes. Girls dance around the bonfire, singing songs in praise of the gods, the spring and the harvest. The significance of the bonfire, in which is burnt the agricultural wastes and firewood is to keep warm during the last lap of winter.


(But, due to pollution issues many of them have stopped performing this ritual, but on the other hand you can still find the roads of Chennai filled with smoke when you get up the day after Bhogi)

Now, I got to have my dinner in sometime and start making kolam in front of my home :)

Wish you all a Happy Pongal! Yen Iniya Pongal vazthukal :)

* Pics source - Internet

I am back :)

Hey all I am back and very glad to be back home and to my blog space . Like you all wished, I had a wonderful trip. Apart from the stuffs I shopped for I carried back home lots of wonderful memories which I am to share with all of you in my coming posts.

The things I missed during my trip were my home,my boy friend and last but surely not the least Blogging :). It happens rite.. Anyways Im doing fine now except for one thing that I have to leave home soon to join hostel ( I feel really heavy in my heart when I think about this one thing). Anyways I will be coming back home for the weekends as my college is about couple of hours travel from home.

We also have a festival coming up in a couple of days, its a harvest festival called pongal about which I will be blogging soon too.

So, loads and loads of stuff to share with you all

About Singapore, moving to hostel, Pongal(the harvest festival) and a lot of memes and awards I reacieved from blogger friends as a token of love abd lastly my paid posts . I know im doing a handful of paid posts every now and then , I jus' hope you all done mind those in between my regular posts or(me making some extra money :p). I don know of those ads are useful to you but will try my best to post relevant ads in my blog space .

Now, that Im back to my regular day to day blogging check out this space for posts regularly and also my new blog space Shalini's travelogue.

Thank you for dropping by my blog even when I was away and rendering your continuous support. I truly appreciate it! Thank you! :)