Pongal 2013 in Kilakarai

Pongal Festival celebration in Kilakarai

What is Pongal ?

Pongal is a Festival for Tamil Nadu people in India.  The core sense of this festival is to dedicate the fist food they made after the harvested food grains, to the Sun God. This festival is mostly celebrated by the Hindu community people. Pongal is also referred to a dish made up of rice.

Pongal Dish - Kilakarai

Pongal festival in Kilakarai

Hindu people in kilakarai started wake up early in the Morning around 4 o'clock on 14th January 2013 and watered their Home entrance to get ready for laying Kolams. They laid Kolams and cooked Pongal in-front of their house along with their family members with great joy and cheers. before 6 A.M many of the family were started producing great sounds like "Pongalo pongal". This sound they normally give on the day of pongal when the water boils and pop out of the pot.

People visited the Temples, almost all the temples in kilakarai were bit rush when comparing to other days. Sugar-cane is the important item in Pongal, Last year a bunch of sugar-cane was sold at a cost of 300 to 450 rs but this time it was bit cheap around 250 to 320 rs. kilakarai people had a good pongal celebration this time. It's commonly noticed that this celebration is having less grace year by year.

Kilakarai markets were fully loaded with Turmeric, Sugar-cane, Vegetables and grocery items. people started buying their home needs from morning 6 AM. They all were roaming here an there in the streets with new clothes and good cheers on their faces.

We could see many of the streets were collecting a small amount of money from the people in their streets and hosted games and parties on the day of pongal, and gave gifts for the winners in the games they won.

Very rare people in kilakarai are cooking pongal infront of their houses, most of them are started cooking pongal inside their kitchen itself. This reduces the joy of pongal and shows that people are not giving much importance to their relatives.