PONGAL CELEBRATIONS: The only creature which has a sixth sense that can only have a character of feeding other creatures is “HUMAN”. Humans are the only creature who has the power of producing food but not all humans are blessed with this mantra only a few are blessed and they are named “FARMER”.

“FEEDERS FETES OF FELICITATION TO MOTHER NATURE”

Why do we always praise MOTHER more than any relation in this world? Because she gives birth to a baby and she feeds her blood to the baby in the form of milk and she keeps feeding food for her baby till her lifetime right?

Then think, how we will be praising the person who feeds the whole world in their lifetime and the effort they take to feed the world, and the support is given by mother nature to the farmers and the other helping hands including cows, birds and so on.

Heart touching right!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Don’t be heartsick because Showing gratitude & love, is there in the Indian culture itself, which we have shown the whole world during the COVID-19 situation by supplying almost 60% of vaccines to all the other countries in the world.

That’s how we are taught by our ancestors ….

PONGAL is also similar to this scenario; it is more than a festival it’s all about showing gratitude to our mother nature who keeps blessing us abundantly even when we destruct her.

And PONGAL is the festival which continued for 4 days of celebration, quite flabbergasting isn’t it?

Do you think is it easy to say thanks to such an enormous nature? No, and that is why we split PONGAL into 4 days of showing thanks to each gist of the earth.

• Day 1: Bhogi Pongal
• Day 2: Surya Pongal
• Day 3: Mattu Pongal
• Day 4: Kanum Pongal

And as you all know INDIA is the only country where we can see PONGAL means ‘overflow’ and India is overflowed with various cultural diversity but we still stand in unity as INDIANS and we prove this by celebrating the PONGAL festival in almost all parts of the country with different names and rituals.

Apart from Tamilnadu other parts of INDIA includes:
Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Gujarat and Rajasthan, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Punjab, Assam celebrate PONGAL as Makara Sankranthi, Sankranthi, Magh Bihu/Bhogali Bihu, Uttarayana.

Now, Let’s see the picturization of the PONGAL festival for 4 days on how we celebrate.

Day 1: BHOGI PONGAL

“Bleak Obliterate Harmony Inserted” - Leaving all the negativity out of us and wishing all the goodness to overflow like PONGAL in our life, usually all the old things will be burnt in fire and the house is cleaned and decorated to welcome the auspicious harvest festival.

DAY 2: SURYA PONGAL

SURYA means SUN that makes sense that why we call it SURYA PONGAL is to thank the sun for giving us all the good deeds that we need for agriculture, so we keep PONGAL on a traditionally decorated mud pot including rice, jaggery and make it overflow to offer the Pongal to the sun and motherland, and we blow conch when PONGAL overflows to share the joy with air and we cook this PONGAL only in firewood stove and sprinkle water at the end to resemble we offer this PONGAL to thank Panja bhootam

So that’s the way we show gratitude to Panja bhootam (five physical elements) FIRE, WATER, LAND, AIR & SPACE of the earth.

DAY 3: MAATU (COW) PONGAL

The divine bovine-goddess described in Hinduism as the mother of all cows is KAMATHENU, so HINDUS always worship cow as a form of god, the reason behind this is all the dairy products that we get from a cow is the food we take after mother’s milk in our life.

And cows play a major role in agriculture by helping farmers so to thank their contribution towards humans all the cows were decorated colourfully on the day of maatu Pongal and we fed them Pongal.

DAY 4: KAANUM PONGAL

Modern kaanum Pongal is just visiting any public or tourist places and spending time with family but the true ritual behind this is sisters in a family feeding the birds, ants and insects with the leftover Pongal and praying for the prosperity of their brothers.

The way of showing our love and gratitude does not stop here we also put a colourful art in front of the house using rice flour to feed all the insects, ants and birds.

Pongal does not end without sugarcane to resemble the sweetness of the harvester festival and so to share the happiness of the harvest festival everyone shares sugarcanes and sweet Pongal with the neighbours.

Also, Jallikattu is the major game played to see the power of the cow and other traditional dances, dramas and games will be performed.

Just like the PONGAL festival celebrated in different ways all over the country, we as Indian follow harmony and peace in diversity.

We wish you all a very Happy Pongal with all the health & happiness.