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.

2012 Champions League Twenty20 (Teams)

The 2012 Champions League Twenty20 will be the fourth edition of the Champions League Twenty20, an international Twenty20 cricket tournament. It will be held from 10 to 28 October 2012.

clt20

Venues

The organisers were considering hosting the matches at five venues: Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad, Bangalore and New Delhi. The final would be played in either Chennai or New Delhi while the opening ceremony was likely to be in Kolkata. Matches played by the Chennai Super Kings would be held in Chennai. This was later put in doubt due to the possibility of monsoons and Durga Puja celebrations and the organisers are now considering South Africa as the host. The teams that qualified through the Indian Premier League were opposed to this idea as it would likely affect their revenue, which is dependent on television viewership.

Qualification

Representation from Australia changes to teams from the Big Bash League, which replaced their previous premier Twenty20 tournament and features new city-based teams instead of the previous first-class teams.

This tournament will feature a team from Pakistan for the first time, as they will participate in the qualifying tournament. Pakistan's participation had not been considered for past seasons of the tournament due to the hostility between India and Pakistan since the 2008 Mumbai attacks. The attacks were also responsible for the cancellation of the planned first season of the tournament in 2008, for which a Pakistan team had qualified.

• Qualified Teams

• Qualifying Stage

The tournament will feature a qualifying stage, introduced in the 2011 tournament. The qualifying stage will be played from 10 to 12 October.

Sachin Tendulkar and 99 Centuries

Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar  is an Indian cricketer widely regarded as one of the greatest batsmen in the history of cricket. He is the leading run-scorer and century maker in Test and one-day international cricket. He is the first male player to score a double century in ODI cricket. In 2002, just 12 years into his career, Wisden ranked him the second greatest Test batsman of all time, behind Donald Bradman, and the second greatest one-day-international (ODI) batsman of all time, behind Viv Richards.Tendulkar was an integral part of the 2011 Cricket World Cup winning Indian team at the later part of his career, his first such win in six World Cup appearances for India.

Tendulkar is the first and the only player in Test Cricket history to score fifty centuries, and the first to score fifty centuries in all international cricket combined; he now has 99 centuries (48 ODI & 51Test cricket) in international cricket.

Playing style

Tendulkar is cross-dominant: He bats, bowls and throws with his right hand, but writes with his left hand. He also practices left-handed throws at the nets on a regular basis. Cricinfo columnist Sambit Bal has described him as the "most wholesome batsman of his time". His batting is based on complete balance and poise while limiting unnecessary movements and flourishes. He appears to show little preference for the slow and low wickets which are typical in India, and has scored many centuries on the hard, bouncy pitches in South Africa and Australia.He is known for his unique punch style of hitting the ball over square. He is also renowned for his picture-perfect straight drive, often completed with no follow-through. Straight drive is his favourite shot.In 2008 Sunil Gavaskar, in an article he wrote in the AFP, remarked that "it is hard to imagine any player in the history of the game who combines classical technique with raw aggression like the little champion does".

Sir Donald Bradman, considered by many as the greatest batsman of all time, considered Tendulkar to have a batting style similar to his. In his biography, it is stated that Bradman was most taken by Tendulkar's technique, compactness and shot production, and had asked his wife to have a look at Tendulkar, having felt that Tendulkar played like him. Bradman's wife, Jessie, agreed that they did appear similar.

Philanthropy

Tendulkar sponsors 200 underprivileged children every year through Apnalaya, a Mumbai-based NGO associated with his mother-in-law, Annabel Mehta. A request from Sachin on Twitter raised 1.025 crore (US$194,750) through Sachin's crusade against cancer for the Crusade against Cancer foundation. Sachin Tendulkar devoted all of nine hours to the 12-hour Coca-Cola-NDTV Support My School telethon on 18 September 2011 that helped raise  7 crore -  2 crore more than the target - for from the creation of basic facilities, particularly toilets for girl students, in 140 government schools across the country.

Honours

Tendulkar has been honoured with the Padma Vibhushan award, India's second highest civilian award, and the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award, India's highest sporting honour. Tendulkar became the first sportsperson and the first person without an aviation background to be awarded the honorary rank of Group Captain by the Indian Air Force. He has received honorary doctorates from University of Mysore and Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences He won the 2010 Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy for cricketer of the year at the ICC awards.

• List of ODI centuries
• List of Test centuries

Those lists mentions the 99 international centuries of our Cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar up to today. The world is now waiting of his 100th century. Hope he'll made it soon and let's wish him for that...

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