Seema Burman celebrates the Tamil harvest festival at Thiruvannamalai with gusto
The harvest festival of Pongal at Ramana Maharshi’s ashram in Thiruvannamalai is so popular that I had to book my accommodation months in advance. “Please allow me to stay during Pongal,” I would write each year to the ashram officials, and reach there with my mother to witness one of the loveliest harvest festivals of India that symbolises auspiciousness.
Pongal is celebrated on Makar Sankranti and is marked by burning, cooking, worshipping and donating. Being a Sun festival, Pongal spreads warmth and illumination just like the Sun. The generally quiet town of Thiruvannamalai in Tamil Nadu reverberates with laughter, music and firecrackers during the four-day festivities. Pongal here means girivalam or circumambulation of the Arunachala Hills, receiving blessings by the Annamalaiyar Temple elephant and a procession of the temple’s presiding deities — Shiva and Parvati — through the streets of the town.
During the four days of my stay at the ashram last year, I enjoyed the sights and sounds on the street — colourful silk saris, glittering jewellery, bright flowers, intricate kolams, sugarcane juice and mouth-watering sweets and savouries; it was an ethereal experience.
On the first day, called Bhogi, old clothes and discarded household items are burnt. This symbolises cleaning of homes and hearts by discarding hatred and greeting each other with love. Girivalam of the Arunachala Hill is flagged off with much fanfare and looks much like a wedding procession with pilgrims and caparisoned elephants jostling for space on the road. As the girivalam progresses, monkeys try to snatch bananas and other snacks that the pilgrims carry.
The next day is Thai Pongal, the actual Pongal day and it falls on the first day of the Tamil month of Thai and is celebrated as New Year. Freshly-painted homes are decorated with flowers and sugarcane, signifying bountiful harvest, and neem twigs to ward off the evil eye; the verandahs are decorated with kolams, elaborate designs made with rice flour; women wear their best silk saris, girls their pavadai thavanis and men don veshtis and angavastrams. The Annamalaiyar Temple, also known as the Big Temple, swells with pride and people.
Rice from the first harvest is cooked in new pots, and milk and jaggery are added later. As the contents of the pot boils over, people shout “Pongalo Pongal!” In Tamil, the word pongal means ‘overflowing’, and here it means overflowing with abundance and prosperity. It is considered auspicious to watch the pot of rice flow over. The cooked rice is also called pongal and eaten as prasad. At the ashram, Pongal celebrations include chanting of mantras, followed by an elaborate meal that includes vadai, payasam, pappadam, and neem leaves paste to remind us that bitterness is a part of life. Pongal night is carnivalesque with loudspeakers blaring bhajans and talks on the importance of the Thai month, fireworks and streets lined with food stalls. There is an air of joie de vivre — an expectation from the Universe to bring forth a promising new year.
Last year, we saw a funeral procession being taken for girivalam. We were told that to die in uttarayana punyakalam is considered auspicious as on this day, the doors to Vishnu’s abode, Vaikuntha, are thrown open for the departed souls. The great-grandfather of the Kauravas, Bhishma Pitamah, lay on a bed of arrows and waited for this time to die (he had the boon of dying at will). The gods are believed to wake up on this day, after six months of sleep.
On the third day, Mattu Pongal, the cattle are thanked for their selfless service on the fields, without which, human beings will go hungry. The cows are bathed, and their horns are painted and decorated with shining metal caps, colourful beads, ribbons, bells and flowers. After the aarti, the cows are offered pongal, rice cooked with milk and jaggery, to eat. Families pile on to their decorated bullock carts and go to wherever the sport of Jallikattu, taming the bull, is held. It is said that once Shiva asked his bull, Basava, to visit earth and tell people to take oil massage and bath every day and eat food once a month. By mistake, Basava announced the reverse — eat everyday and have an oil bath once a month. Basava was cursed by Shiva to live on earth, plough fields and help people produce more food.
On Kaanum Pongal, the fourth day, people thank their relatives, neighbours and friends for their support during harvest. Handicrafts, kitchen vessels and other household items are exchanged as gifts and puja is done in the fields and temples.
The ashram cooks heave a sigh of relief as, after feeding thousands of people with their delectable food, it’s time for them to relax. And for us, it’s an emotional time because we have to say goodbye to the ashram staff, the Shiva Temple and the townspeople. Yet these four days sustained our emotional energy and like me, everyone had started discussing next year’s Pongal at Thiruvannamalai.
Sugarcane
It is a tropical grass with stout jointed fibrous stalks that are rich in sugar. Kamadeva, the god of love, carries a bow made of sugarcane and strung with a line of humming bees. Sugarcane is an inevitable part of Pongal celebrations. It is said that on Pongal day, Shiva fed sugarcane to a stone elephant in the Madurai
Meenakshi Temple.
According to a Philippines’ folktale, sugarcane was once regarded useless. In a forest grew clusters of bamboos that happily swayed their tall slender bodies in sync with the gentle breeze. Not far away stood a short lonely bamboo and it seemed to have stopped growing beyond five ft. Folks from the nearby town often cut the tall bamboos and made useful things but never even glanced at the short plant.
One day, the lone bamboo prayed that it may be made important and also put to good use. All of a sudden, dark clouds covered the sky and a sharp lightning struck and turned it into a dark bamboo. Aside from being dark, its wood became too soft. The short bamboo was now mocked even more. One day, a man etched his name on the bark of the lone bamboo. He saw a sweet scented liquid oozing from the etching. He tasted the liquid and found it very sweet and refreshing. Overnight, the lone bamboo became useful and important and was named sugarcane. It is packed with health benefits. Sugarcane juice contains several essential nutrients — calcium, potassium, iron, magnesium and phosphorous, which are vital for the normal functioning of the body. It strengthens the stomach, kidneys, heart, eyes, brain and sex organs.
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