Happy Pongal To All "An Important Festival For Tamilians"

The picture above was taken during a family ceremony at our home. This is how hindus worship God.


The above picture is my salwar which I bought for pongal.


The picture below is called rangoli made by me for dipawali.


Yes It is time for pongal an important festival for the people of Tamil Nadu in India. What is Pongal ? Pongal is a festival for farmers to thank God for the bountiful harvest of the year. In Tamil Nadu before most of the people did farming as their main occupation. So for years people of Tamil Nadu celebrate January 14th as pongal to thank God. In Tamil year January 14th is the starting of a tamil month called thai and this month is considered as a very auspicious month for marriages, house warming and many other special occasions.
Pongal is celebrated for four days. The first day is Bohi where people throw away or burn old things at home. The second day is pongal where people wake up before sunrise take a bath , wear new clothes and in front of their homes they make rangoli also called kolam where they draw beautiful designs on the street with grounded lime stone. Then they keep mud pot in the middle of the rangoli with turmeric, beetle leaves, sugar cane, plantain and many more offerings to the God, Sun on the sides of the pot and boil the milk in the mud pot. The milk should boil and flow out of the mud pot and that is considered very auspicious and that is pongal means "something over flowing or cooking".
The third day is maatu pongal which means festival for cows. People decorate cows and worship them as they help to plough the fields while farming. The fourth day is kaanum pongal where people make variety of delicious food at home and go for picnics and have food there. These are the customs they follow in villages even now.
Now coming to our generation, for us pongal means holiday. Lolz holiday for schools, offices but not for us home makers :( Living in pigeon cage apartments if we cook or boil milk in front of our apartments for sure we will get lot of abuses and warning from the apartment community. So what do we do get up before sunrise ????? how does the sun look like when it rises ???? no ways!! for us the day starts and the sun rises at 9am in the morning. Then take a bath , pray and then make some sweets specially sarkarai pongal a special sweet rice made of jaggery and then start watching special programmes on Television. That is all we can do living in apartments and that too very far off from Tamil Nadu in Noida a place near New Delhi. But one thing we follow even now? we buy new dresses for pongal elders should be proud of us at least we are following this tradition :)) But what do we do we are also helpless just imagine can we celebrate maattu pongal festival for cows in apartments ??:)
I still remember my childhood days where we go to my grand parents village to celebrate Pongal. It was a very nice experience where all cousins meet and have lot of fun. The custom is youngsters should get the blessing of elders and in return they give money for us and we collect nice pocket money by getting the blessings of grand parents, parents, uncle and aunts. Where ever we see elders we run to them to get blessings lolz ;) But this generation is missing all that fun which is very sad. My mom has 6 sisters and a brother and my dad 5 brothers and a sister then imagine the No of cousins we have :) we have lot of fun when we meet in special occasions and in vacations . Really missing the good old days.To know more about pongal visit here

DIWALI AT MY HOME

The picture above is a clay pot filled with water and decorated with flowers and lighted with candles it is said that mud, water, air, fire and land are the five important things and you can see those five things in this clay pot clay made of mud, there is water inside, air is everywhere and it is litted wit candles so fire is there and it is on land so all five things bring prosperity to the home.

The picture above is called rangoli means colourful drawing, it is made by me with grounded coarse lime stone powder and then filled with colour powder and flowers and then lighted diyas in the corners. It is made by hand.

A closer view of rangoli

Below is godess Ganesh and Lakshmi . They are worshipped on the day of Diwali
Below are some of the pictures of beautiful hand made and painted diyas

Hi, I want to share with you some of the happiest moments of Diwali celebrated at my home with my family. We got up early in the morning and had oil bath, then I started preparing breakfast a traditional south Indian menu with idli, vada, kesari, sambar and chutney. We also had purchased some different kind of sweets from a popular shop in Delhi and Noida called Haldiram's. After that my husband and son started watching special programmes for Diwali in the television. Now with the help of my maid I started making rangolis and some decorations in the house. We stay far away from our relatives, so there is no way meeting them and I socialize very little and I have a very limited friend circle. That is my nature and I tried my best to change me but all in vain. We stay in the northern part of India and our parents and all our relatives stay in south India, am very close to my bro and my cousins but cannot meet them on special occassions like Diwali :( and anyway started somewhere but going in another direction, coming to the point and after the decorations had lunch and in the evening we started lighting diyas and visited few friends, exchanged gifts and sweets. My son bursted some crackers ( nowadays we have stopped buying crackers and for tradition we buy a few like sparkle sticks, phool jari ) and then we did a small pooja and that's it all over. I have attached some photographs of rangoli, diyas, and the beautiful lights from our neighbourhood.

* The rangolis are made by me and also the flower arrangements :)