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Pongal Festival In Santa Clarita Hosted By The Santa Clarita Tamil Academy

The Santa Clarita Tamil Academy celebrated Thai Pongal, a harvest festival,  in mid-January  with more than 120 of its members.  

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Thai Pongal is a Tamil Harvest Festival celebrated four days from January 13, the last day of Tamil calendar month Maargazhi, until the third day of the Tamil month, Thai, which is January 17.

Thai Pongal is one of the most important festivals celebrated by Tamil people in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The day marks the start of the sun’s six months long journey northwards.

The Pongal festival begins with the singing of the Tamil State song of government, Tamil Thai Vazhthu. They then eat cooked sweet Pongal, a rice dish, with fresh sugarcane, and 25 other authentic food items.

Pongal is cooked in sunlight usually in a porch or courtyard as the dish is dedicated to the Sun God, Surya. The dish is cooked on spot with rice and milk, with cardamom, jiggery, raisins and cashew.

The festival also includes sports activities, drawing competitions, kolam, also known as rangoli, competition, a speech competition and gifts.

The festival is mainly celebrated to convey appreciation to the Sun God for providing the energy for agriculture. The origins of the Thai Pongal festival may date to more than 1000 years ago during King Chola empire days. Pongal is translated as boiling over or overflow.

The four day festival includes Bhogi, Thai Pongal, Maatu Pongal and Kaanum Pongal.

Bhogi – On this day all Tamilians discard old belongings and celebrate new possessions. The people assemble at dawn to light a bonfire in order to burn the discards. Houses are cleaned, painted and decorated to give a rich festival look. The horns of Oxen and buffaloes are painted in villages in Tamil nadu.

Thai Pongal – During the festival milk is cooked in a vessel, when it starts to bubble and overflows out of vessel, freshly harvested rice grains are added to the pot. At the same time Mrs.Revathy Karthikeyan  blows a conch called the Sanggu and all SCTA members shout Pongal O Pongal. The Pongal is then served to everyone in the SCTA along with savories and sweets.  Mrs.ShanmugaPriya, principal of SCTA, cooked the sweet Pongal in the park from scratch with help of direct fire flames and copper vessels. Sweet Pongal tasted the same as Ayyappan Temple Pongal.

Maatu Pongal –Tamilian’s regard cattle as sources of wealth for providing dairy products, fertilizer and labor of plowing and transportation. Cattles are recognized and afforded affectionately, decorate cattle with colors and garlands, paint the horns, and pray to cattle’s. Features of the day include games like Jallikkattu and taming bull.

Kaanum Pongal – Kaanum means to visit. Many families hold reunions on this day.  Celebrants chew sugar cane.  Nearly dozens of six feet sugarcane were distributed during the speech competition to all SCTA members.

Margali Kolam– This occurs when five participants joined the Kolam competitions and three judges were not able to pick the best one. Visitors to Chesebrough park were specially invited, by the SCTA,  to make the final judgments and selected one Kolam competition winner.

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KHTS AM 1220 - Santa Clarita Radio

Pongal Festival In Santa Clarita Hosted By The Santa Clarita Tamil Academy

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