Let the rice over-flow!

It may be a matter of shame, that being a Tamil, I do not know the origins of one of the most popular festivals of the Tamils, the Pongal, celebrated yesterday. Living in a culturally uprooted environs, I sometimes forget that it was Pongal, until a friend or two call me up or send me an email note wishing 'Happy Pongal', and there is hardly any remembrance of the harvest festival in the houses I live, for the simple reason the festival does not much matter to the people of this place, and I am happy to keep it to myself! But I know I am not alone in this, all the Tamils who are outside Tamil Nadu may go through the same.

But today I wish to re-create the Pongal myth and origins, and it may just be the pigment of my imagination, but coming from an agricultural background this is what I strongly feel. The harvest festival of the Dravidian tribe reminds me of the good and bad times our ancestors had in the land, with a name 'adi dravida' (which has come to connote for the mainstream the 'low caste' people). I imagine a time when crops failed, and there was too little at the end of the harvest. The people who had been hungry for days and months, looking eagerly for the harvest to have a stomach full, brought the fruits of their labor home, pounded the paddy, and got fresh rice for cooking.

The whole family gathers at the courtyard to cook the first meal from the harvest, and ready to have have their stomachs full, after days and months. There is nothing much to add with this - no special side-dish or normal festive dishes, only the 'pongal'. The festivity is shown through rejoicing when the rice bubbles up, and over-flows from the earthen pot, and when each member of the family goes to the neighbors asking them if the rice is over-flowing! That is the beauty of this festival, not being contended with the pot full of rice, people are concerned that their neighbors also have a pot full of rice to have their full!

Pongal, as far as I am concerned, is a cultural festival, which unfortunately is appropriated by the Hindus as their religious fesitival. As in most cases, the dominant group had the tendency to appropriate all the good things from the minority groups, and probably that is what happened with Pongal too. The cultural festival had been given a religious coloring, with the addition of a few religious rituals, but leaving aside the rituals and the religious connotations they may signify, the festival is basically a cultural one, and it has to be seen as such!

I would be very happy if there is a pot-full of rice in every house in Tamil Nadu, my homeland, on this day; that there is not a single soul going hungry to bed at least on Pongal day, and it is only under such circumstances can we all celebrate the festival meaningfully. Not being content with the pot-full of rice at home, if everyone moves out of their houses, to check with the less fortunate and the unfortunate ones to ask them that proverbial question 'pongiducha?' (has the rice over-flown?), and if they get an affirmative answer, then the festival can be deemed truly meaningful!