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Ahead of the Pongal festival, potters are busy making pots in Tamil Nadu's Madurai.
Potters are making pots of all sizes, shapes and colours as demand is expected to peak this year. This year, the potters are going to do brisk business as compared to the last year. Last year, intermittent rainfall severely affected the process of making earthen pots due to which they are unable to meet the market demand. Pongal is a four-day harvest festival dedicated to the Sun God. To mark the festival, the Pongal sweet dish is prepared and is first offered to the Gods and Goddesses followed, sometimes, with an offering to cows. The Pongal festival is set to start on January 15, which marks the last day of the Tamil month called 'Marghazi'. The first day of the festival is called Bhogi Pongal. The festival is observed over the span of 4 days in the state. The first day of the festival is called the Bhogi festival, the second day is called Thai Pongal; the third day is called Mattu Pongal; the fourth day is called Kaanum Pongal. The winter harvest festival is celebrated across Tamil Nadu with pomp and show. The celebrations, associated with the sun, are celebrated by making colourful Kolams and preparing traditional food in Tamil Nadu. The word 'Pongal' in Tamil means 'to boil', it is also the name of a sweet dish made out of boiled rice, moong dal, milk and jaggery, which is prepared specially to mark the harvest festival. The festival celebrates the harvesting of crops including sugarcane, rice and turmeric and falls around the same time as Lohri and Makar Sankranti in mid-January each year. It is essentially a thanksgiving festival, wherein farmers thank nature, the Sun God and the farm animals for helping in the productions of crops, while other people thank the farmers for producing the crops. (ANI)
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