pongal pongal pongal

pongal

well it's officially harvest festival and it's celebrated all over india. here are some facts, and why i suddenly understand all the festivities at the sri devi temple.

-celebrations are part of sun worship (because the sun gives life and grows the plants)-hence the ladies throwing hundreds of flowers into little piles of fire at sri devi
-mid january has the sun moving into capricorn signalling the end of winter (vedic calandar)
-celebrated in punjab, assam, bengal, andhra pradesh, karnataka and tamil nadu. tamil nadu's harvest festival is called pongal, which means "rice."

*1st day pongal-bonfires burn and ashes used as manure for the future fields (sri devi had cleared out the field behind my hotel days before the fest in preparation, than the huge burning i did not know at the time was for pongal. remember thursday when i couldn't flee my hotel?
*2nd day pongal-sun worshipped (sri devi temple had the drummers playing ecstatically at the crack of dawn on tuesday)signalling the rise of the sun. milk is boiled over as a symbol of prosperity. (this morning i saw them doing this at temple)
*3rd day pongal-the ox and cattle crucial to farmers livlihood are worshipped. sometimes splashed with colored sand, painted, dressed up, and there are ox cart races and bullfighting all over.

so what kinds of things does one eat at pongal? rice and jaggery (jaggery is raw sugar)-the canes are stacked and waiting at sri devi temple. they also feed all the crows and critters, which is why at sri devi all the people sat down to eat and just all walked away from their half eaten plates without cleaning it. the entire place was full of animals feasting on leftovers. who knew there was a reason for this. at the time i had thought they were too lazy to clean up after themselves, but now it makes perfect sense. the names of the dishes traditionally eaten during pongal are called til gajak, til poli, and chakkarai pongal.

the festivites have been constant since thursday. there's too much going on to watch all the time-it seems to begin with the sun rise and goes till 11pm almost non stop. i did watch them errect a 40 foot pole with a long rope on it while a pile of frantic drummers played against avant garde horns blasting from the speakers. they tied a large pink marigold garland and a decorative hand made textile piece and hoisted it up to the top of the pole facing the sri devi deity. when it reached the top, off went the m80s, firecrackers, and fireworks. deity in red with giant orange marigold garland. than they wrapped the remaining rope around with music accompaniment and more explosions when that was finished.

so they are constantly playing this amazing film score music loud enough for you to hear all the way to trivandrum, which is why i'm the only one crazy enough to stay in the hotel above the temple. it's like having my own personal theatre speakers circling my pool, and i can get underwater when the m80s go off. it makes me wonder-who is the temple d.j.? does he get the job passed on to him by his father? does he audition? what would be the criteria? interesting. cause he's better than any club d.j. i've heard.
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here's a few questions from the hindu's young world quiz. i'll post the answers next time i blog.

1.in which popular movie does one come across deb, gurgle, gill and bloat?
2.it it's wipro for azim premji, what is it for shiv nadar?
3.the popular hip hop artist born james todd smith, would turn 37 today. how is he better known?
4.manju virattu may be witnessed during the pongal festival period in tamil nadu. what is it?
5.what would one do with a wai wai? eat it or wear it?
6.in physics, the transference of heat through a fluid or gas by the actual movement of the fluid itself is called...?
7.name the strong southerly to southeasterly wind in the mediterranean that originates in sahara region?

bindifry