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V Gangadhar

"Pongal, O Pongal!" The joyous cries rent the air. It is the season of Pongal and there is a pleasant chill even in the normally warm and sultry Tamil Nadu. The northeastern monsoon had been good, the harvests beautiful and the people's spirits are running high. The earthen pots boil over with rice cooked in different ways. Sugarcane and bananas are much in demand. Women apply haldi paste on their bodies before having their baths.

It is Pongal time in Tamil Nadu. On the same day, in distant Gujarat, people fly kites to celebrate Makar Sankranti. In Maharashtra, special pujas are held and til laddus freely distributed. How wonderful is the variety of India that the same festival was celebrated in different ways in different parts of the country.

Pongal in Tamil Nadu is as joyous as Diwali, particularly among the non-Brahmins. It generates more enthusiasm in the rural areas because of its association with the land and a good harvest. There are no fireworks during Pongal, like Diwali. But the mandatory bath, new clothes, a special menu and happy union with friends are all part of the tamasha.

Pongal literally means, boiling over. Symbolically, the boiling over of joy following a bumper harvest. It honours the gods of rain and sun and thanks them for making possible the bumper crop. Though spread over four days, major celebrations are actually occur on two days. This year those two key days will be January 14 and 15. The first day is most auspicious as the sun has entered the makar rasi or northern hemisphere. It moves from the Tropic of Capricorn toward the equator and then towards the Tropic of Cancer. This period, in 1998, will last from January 14 to July 14 and is known as uttarayan. There is a rather moving episode in the Mahabharat where the indomitable Bhisma Pitamaha, waited on his bed of arrows on the Kurukshetra battlefield for the arrival of uttarayan to free his soul and attain moksha.

Somehow, Pongal is not truly a religious festival. It is just a happy occasion and its origin lay in the rich cultural tradition of Tamil Nadu. Many households do not even organise special pujas. The stress is on enjoyment for favours received. A few days before the festival, the houses are thoroughly cleaned and whitewashed.

South Indian homes are generally sparsely furnished and are normally cleaner than most homes because people do not wear shoes inside the home. The kitchen sparkles with the brass, steel and silver utensils thoroughly cleaned and polished. Most households buy new clothes for the festival. But the buying spree is not on the same scale as Diwali. But in rural homes where a bumper harvest brings a happier Pongal, the budget is unlimited for clothes and entertainment.

Pongal is referred as Thai Pongal because it always falls during the Tamil month of Thai. The weather is balmy. There is still rain in the air. And the dust is minimal. The countryside looks green.

At home, father and our cook Subramaniam spent long hours decorating the home, using green mango leaves and marigolds. Banana plants and sugarcane stalks were kept near the entrance of the home.

Mother and my three sisters pored over dozens of kolam or rangoli patterns for the special day. They were beautiful. And their efforts made the home resemble an art gallery. The designs were made with white flour which was held between the thumb and the index finger. It was no doubt a backbreaking job. However for the womenfolk it was a challenge. It was an issue of prestige... Whose home will come out with the biggest and most intricate patterns?

We took our bath early in the day. The menfolk did not have much to do except wait for the special lunch. The radio and the television would run special Pongal programmes, mostly music sessions by well known singers. Magazines came out with special Pongal malars or festival issues.

Even today the Pongal menu is more or less traditional. It is always heavily rice-based and the two major items are sakkarai ponga' and ven pongal. The first is made from rice, fresh jaggery and ghee and is one of the traditional sweets of Tamil Nadu, often served as prasadam in temples. Ven pongal is the saltier version. Soft and packed with ghee, one need not even bite into it. Just chew the pongal to savour the taste and swallow it!

Certain traditional households do perform special pujas on the occasion. A brass or mud vessel is decorated with mango leaves, ginger saplings, fresh turmeric leaves and sugarcane pieces. The pongal is cooked in this vessel by either the lady of the house or the daughter-in-law. Servants are not allowed to touch it. Once the pongal was cooked, the vessel was taken outside and kept in a place where the rays of the sun would fall on it. As household members stood around the vessel, womenfolk performed aarti and sang devotional songs.

The second day of Pongal (this year it will be January 15) is called Mattu Pongal. The focus shifted from humans to mattu or bullocks. They are washed thoroughly and decorated with flowers and tinkling bells. For once, there is no work for the bullocks and they are provided with special food including oil cakes, green grass and bananas. The cows and bulls are then paraded on the streets.

In the villages and small towns, young men challenge the bulls to exciting fights. They try to grab the horns of the bulls and force them to retreat. The challenge is seen as a ploy to attract the attention of the young women who had assemble for the occasion.

During my childhood, when we we lived in different towns and villages in Tirunelveli district, our mode of transport was a bullock cart. We had two bullocks, one with black hair on its tail and the other with white. Esaki, the 20-year old youth, was our bullock cart driver and Mattu Pongal was a special day for him. He took the bullocks to the river, washed them and fed them special delicacies. I accompanied him to town he was part of the groups of young men, who took on the bulls. It was a scene straight from Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises !

Some of the bulls ran amok scattering the spectators. Occasionally, the bulls gored the young men who challenged them. But killing of the bulls was not allowed and it was all in fun. It was an occasion when the poor and the rich, the upper and the lower castes mixed freely. Bets were laid on the ability of the young men to overcome the bulls.

While Holi is a godsend for Hindi film producers, Pongal and Mattu Pongal are the favourites of Tamil film producers. Quite a few Tamil films feature scenes from these two festivals. The hero is a handsome young villager who overcomes the fiercest bull in the arena and the heroine is the coy, young maiden who passes sidelong glances at the hero. Mattu Pongal is an ideal launch for a romance.

Sketch by Dominic Xavier

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