Pongal and the celebrations of India

Pongal is a festival which falls in mid January celebrated by Tamil peoples all over the world. We(Tamil people) celebrate Pongal to show our gratitude to the Nature for being an essential source of agriculture.

Usually the celebrations are for four days Bohi, Pongal, Maatu pongal, and Kaanum pongal. 

On Bohi we discard old things and focus on new things by cleaning and decorating our house. 

The second day is the main day of the festival we prepare Pongal(the dish) and we keep it in front of the Sun during sunrise to show our gratitude and then we share the dish with neighbors and relations. This day coincides with Makara Sankranthi which is a winter harvest festival celebrated throughout India. The day marks the start of sun’s six-month long journey northwards.

The third day is Maatu pongal. Maatu is the Tamil word for cow, on this day we show out gratitude to the cattle by worshiping it. Cattle helps us throughout the harvesting process and gives us the dairy products. To rejuvenate the cattle we clean it and we feed pongal to it and then we will play with it.

The last and fourth day is Kaanum pongal this is the day to thank our friends and relatives. To show our gratitude to them we share gifts, pongal dish, sugarcane and dresses. During Kaanum Pongal people visit relatives and friends to enjoy the festive season. In the cities this day is synonymous with people flocking to beaches and theme parks to have a day out with their families.

Jallikattu is a sport played with specially trained bulls as a part of Pongal celebrations. The trained young guys will play with specially trained bulls. Bull fighting was has been common among the ancient tribes who lived in the ‘Mullai’ geographical division of Tamil Nadu. In olden days the game was used by women to choose their husbands. Successful "matadors" were chosen as grooms. Nowadays we see it as a sport of bravery.

The Inscription of Jallikattu

Salem Government museum

 jallikattu at Alanganallur, Madurai.

Pongal is celebrated by Tamil people and other Indian people also celebrate these days but in different names and they follow different procedures to celebrate.

Some of those are,

• Tamil Nadu - celebrated as Thai Pongal
• Andhra Pradesh, Bengal, Kerala, Bihar, Goa, Karnataka, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Manipur, Uttar Pradesh - celebrated as Makara Sankranthi
• Gujarat and Rajasthan celebrated as Uttarayana
• Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Punjab - celebrated as Lohri
• Assam - celebrated as Magh Bihu or Bhogali Bihu
• Nepal - celebrated as Maghe Sankranti or Makar Sankranti

Most of the Indian festivals are celebrated based on the dates in ancient Indian calender. Google it you can find many interesting things.

What ever the names and procedures be lets celebrate together...!!!

Image source - Google & Wikipedia.

Unity and Diversity in Modern Indian Society

India is one of the countries which are famous for "Unity in Diversity". In our modern Indian society, are we losing our Unity? Is Diversity dominating our country? Some of the recent issues in India made this thought to root in us.

People from different religions live here in India but all are undoubtedly united by one sole feeling of ‘Being an Indian’ this is the main reason for unity. The diversity depends on the language, religion, region, culture and caste. As we all know these are the main part of our Indian History, we have studied it in our school days. As I belong to Modern Indian Society I'd like to see Unity and Diversity in my aspect.

Modern Indian society

One of the all time trending news in India is issue between two groups, two communities, two states, two religions and even between two people, yes everything starts as small. I live in south India many problems are there between each states the main reason for those problem is sharing some resource to others. Many people say that politicians are the main reason behind these problems but each and every citizen should accept the blame.

As I mentioned earlier everything starts as small for example if a child refuse to share his/her snakes to others that's the starting point. Dear younger generation of India, we have to teach our children about sharing what we have got, care for others, to respect people and how to handle our Indian society. Before doing so, we have to know about those things. I think these are the main qualities of survival of the fitness.

Nowadays we don't respect people instead of that we respect the things they have got. A single mobile phone sets the status of a person. We are forgetting people and running behind the things and teaching the same to the next generation. Let them to be close with people not with things. If your children wants to play with their friend let them go, don't buy them a video game to play. Then only they will know how to treat other people and to see our Indian society with respect.

Most of the festivals in our country are celebrated all over India in the same day may be some difference is there like, name of the festival and the procedure to celebrate. But the reason for celebrating is same. So Indians are very much related, no matter where they live and which region they belong to. If we do a research on that we can find how are we related and where are we separated. If you are a history student it will be easy for you.

So we should respect every other language, religion, people and city. No country in the world has so many language and religion. We should be proud of it. We should set a good example for our future generations.

Proud to be an Indian!!!

PS: Written a post about a social issue after a long time. If you like it please do share and give your valuable comments - Sasikumar Raja 

Image Courtesy: shiningbschool.in