PONGAL

Festival is a time period of celebration where all the family members, friends, relatives are gathered together in a place. Festivals play a very crucial role in all our lives. It spreads brotherhood and faith between all humans. It promotes harmony. It creates an opportunity for the people to share their feelings and exchange their ideas with their family. Upon that, we are also able to discuss our problems and get a solution for it. Festivals are the better of the two worlds.

Celebrating festivals are that important that I compare it to the oxygen that leads us to live in this earth. It helps us to know how much one care about each other. It helps us to enjoy and have fun with each other. There is a new kind of happiness, colour and prosperity that every festival gives us.

It helps to be close to our culture and tradition. Mainly, only because of festivals we are still able to remember our old traditions that our ancestors have given us.  We are able to know about our own land. There is a pride in celebrating it. There is a reason behind celebrating each and every festival. Festivals make our life more beautiful and joyful.

There are many varieties of festivals celebrated all over the world. From that I would choose my favourite festival “PONGAL”. Pongal is also known as “Harvest Festival”. It is the most important festival for people of Tamil Nadu. Not only in Tamil Nadu, is it celebrated all over the world. It is a prominent festival for the farmers. Tamilians say ‘Thai pirandhaal vazhi pirakkum’. Pongal is celebrated the day on which the sun begins to move northwards are called ‘Makar Shankranti’.

It is celebrated for 4 days usually from January 14 to January 17. There is a special tradition for each of these days. The first day is “Bhogi”. People discard old belongings and celebrate new comings.  It is also known as LOHRI and MAGH BIHU in Punjab and Assam.

The second day is THAI PONGAL or SURYA PONGAL. It is devoted to Surya Dev. It is the starting of the new Tamil month THAI. Pongal in Tamil means ‘overflowing’. It signifies prosperity and abundance. People decorate their homes with banana and mango leaves and also draw decorative patterns of rangoli on the floor. People prepare Pongal on this occasion to thank the sun for its untiring efforts to help in growing crops. The Sun stands for “Pratyaksha Brahman”. It symbolizes the one, non-dual, self-effulgent, glorious divinity blessing one and all tirelessly. The Sun is the one who transcends time and also the one who rotates the proverbial wheel of time. People shout “Pongalo Pongal” and “Pongum Mangalam Engum Thanguga” in Tamil when Pongal overflows the vessel.

The Third day after Thai Pongal is Mattu Pongal. Tamil people consider cattles, cows, and goats as their god. On this special occasion, they thank them for helping them in every possible way. They bathe them and paint the horns of the cows and splash colour on goats.

The last day but not the least day is Kaanum Pongal. It marks the end of Pongal festivities in India. Kaanum means “to visit”. They again decorate their homes with rangoli or Kolam.

In all these four days, people chew sugarcanes and wear new clothes and enjoy Pongal with their family. Pongal was never seen as Religious Festival of Tamil Nadu throughout the history. People think Pongal brings good luck, good fortune and good cheer.

Pongal is a very interesting festival according to me. Festivals are, in fact for everyone in the area. Even people working faraway places or abroad also are united under the name of the festivals. Festivals keep people in touch with their culture, tradition, family and place.

Everyone will sit together, eat together, play together, enjoy each other’s company and also remember old times. Now-a-days it provides great opportunity for people below 18 years like me to know and celebrate these festivals. Owing to the cutting edge technology, people in urban places celebrate only few festivals despite knowing it. Technology drew people aside. It gave me an opportunity to get to know and celebrate Pongal and many other festivals. I hope my elders would teach me and my younger’s about the festivals and its significance.

I wish all a good luck to celebrate the festivals and be together with their family. Festivals remove negativity, prosper our lives so let us all celebrate it and have fun. I think you will see eye to eye with my views on festivals. Please draw it to everyone’s attention about the uniqueness of festivals. I don’t think so I drew a long bow. I enjoyed telling you all about Pongal. For now, I tell you my readers, bye. Next time, I come with more interesting topic with interesting information Thank You.

Author Bio : Sahithya B. A, a standard 11th student, from Sri Sankara Vidyalayaa Cbse School, Karur, Tamil Nadu, A participant of International Essay Competition, October.