“I come from a joint family who are ardent fans of the Tamil culture and tradition. In keeping up with that spirit, we named our kids with some proper Tamil names. In that regard, pongal with my in-laws is an exciting celebration! The preparations start a month in advance and everyone in our house give in their full participation. We start by cleaning every inch of the house and give it a fresh coat of paint. Lead by my wonderful mother-in-law, we ensure that we de-clutter the house and let it all go on the bhogi festival (the day before pongal). In our tradition, my family brings in ‘seer varisai’ to my in-laws on the eve of pongal. Among this, the jaggery, the festival clothes and the sugarcane bundle is important! This is one of the important traditions of Pongal and we have been upholding this for several years now. So on the day of the pongal, we wake up at 4 and start making the preparations for the festival. We source mud pots a few days prior to the festival and decorate it with flowers and garlands; we ensure that fresh pots are purchased every year. And on the day of the pongal, we place the pots outside the house and cook two different varieties of pongal – sweet and salt! The house is also decorated with mavilai thoranams and flower garlands are let to hang all over the house! Once the pooja is completed, we share the pongal with everyone and have a sumptuous lunch! The second important part of Pongal is the colorful kolams! It will usually be done on the night before pongal where we draw elaborate rangolis with wishes and colour it using vibrant color powders. The day next to pongal is maatu pongal so we make a separate pongal on that day and give it to cows and other animals. Pongal according to me signifies a new beginning – when we clean the house and let go of the clutter, we should also clean ourselves of our negative thoughts and invest in our wellbeing. “Thai Poranda Vazhi Porakum” is a famous tamil proverb which reinstates that owing to the first day of the tamil month ‘Thai’, we offer our penance to the sun god and start the year with a clean slate. I hope that the upcoming generation too would devotedly invest themselves in our customs and traditions for they are all backed with so many scientific values. Nowadays many people are making a simple celebration by cooking pongal in a cooker inside the kitchen but the use of a mud pot holds so many nutritional values; which is why it was brought on us that we should make cook in a mud pot on the day of pongal. Much of what we do today was handed down to us by our mother-in-law! She was a true visionary with respect to how she wanted to bring up the family. I still look up to her as a role model!”

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