Pongal/ Sankaranthi

Pongal

Pongal, also called Sankaranthi, is the South Indian festival that is celebrated on the 14^th of January every year as the harvest festival of South India. It signals the end of the traditional farming season. 

The Pongal festival actually consists of four consecutive festivals:

Jan 13 is Bhogi, when old clothes and materials are thrown away and burnt, marking the beginning of a new life for the next year.

Jan 14 is Pongal. It is traditional to boil fresh milk in a pot and let it boil over (literal meaning of “Pongal”). People also make sweets and savories in celebration. Chakkara (Sweet) Pongal is a kind of sweet that is made on this day. A Pooja is usually done where vegetables, sugar cane and spices are offered to the gods.

Jan 15 is Maattu Pongal to thank the cows and bulls. Jallikattu is also played on this day in many places in Tamil Nadu. Jallikattu, an old tradition for the farmers, is a bull taming event. It is fundamentally different from bull fighting seen in Spanish culture. In Jallikattu, money is tied to the bull’s horns and participants are given a chance to tame the bull. Whoever tames it can get the money. But there is a time limit and if the bull wins, the bull is used to service numerous cows and in this way it preserves the native breed. No weapons are allowed and the bull must not be harmed in any way.

Jan 16 is Kanum Pongal or Thiruvalluvar Day. This day is dedicated to the sun god. This day is also a day when all the women, young and old, of a household pray for the welfare of their home and brothers. They go outside in the morning before bathing and place small banana leaves out. On each banana leaf, some Chakkara Pongal, curd rice, sugar cane cut into tiny pieces, and sometimes Ven Pongal, are kept for the birds while the women pray. After this aarti is performed. This ritual is also called “Kaaka Kuruvi Kalyanam” (marriage of crow and sparrow). After this, the women go inside and bathe with some turmeric.

FUN FACT: Many Hindus actually leave some food out for the birds (usually crows) every day. Whenever rice is cooked, a little bit is taken from the top (after offering it to the gods, of course) and set outside. It is only after this that they must eat.

The best thing about Pongal is the sugar cane and the chakkara Pongal, in my opinion. Also, sugar cane juice is amaaaazing!

IN THE NEWS: The sport of Jallikattu has been challenged by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and they have declared a ban on it for alleged violent treatment of the bulls and accusations of animal cruelty. (Read: All You Need to Know about the Jallikattu Uprising) The people of Tamil Nadu are outraged because this is an almost 2500 year old tradition and the bulls are raised just for Jallikattu now. Without Jallikattu, raising bulls would be for nothing (because everyone uses tractors in fields now). So what about the cows that produce milk? Without the native breed of bulls, the cows would have to be artificially inseminated and the native breed of cows would disappear altogether. Thousands of thousands of Tamilians have been gathered at Marina beach in Chennai in peaceful protest against the ban on Jallikattu for three days now, as of January 19, 2017. Schools, colleges, business establishments and civic agencies have declare a day off on Friday, January 20, 2017, due to the far reaching consequences of the protests.