Pongal

When it falls

Four days around the Sun's entry into Makara (Capricorn), 14 or 15 January: Bhogi the day before, Thai Pongal on the saṅkrānti itself, Māṭṭu Pongal the day after, Kāṇum Pongal the fourth day.

The Phala almanac gives the exact day for your own city; the lunar and solar rules above are what it computes from.

The story

Pongal is the dish and the act: the pot of new rice boiling in milk until it spills over the rim, and the shout that greets it, Pongalo Pongal! The month of Thai that opens today is the good month; the proverb says Thai piṛandāl vaḻi piṛakkum, when Thai is born a way opens. The rice harvest is in and the farmers thank the Sun, the rain and the cattle in turn.

It is the one Tamil festival that owes nothing to a god's story, and it is kept by Tamils of every religion in Tamil Nadu, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Singapore and the diaspora, where it is a public holiday in several countries.

How the day is kept

• Bhogi: old things are burned in a bonfire at dawn and the house is cleaned and painted for the new year; in some towns the day is Indra's.
• Thai Pongal: at sunrise a new clay pot is set on a fire in the open, decorated with turmeric and ginger plants tied round the neck, and rice, milk and jaggery boil over in it; the pongal is offered to the Sun on a banana leaf with sugarcane.
• Māṭṭu Pongal: the cattle are washed, their horns painted, garlanded and fed the pongal first; and the jallikaṭṭu, the bull-embracing contest, is held in Madurai district (Alanganallur, Palamedu, Avaniyapuram) with thousands watching.
• Kāṇum Pongal: families go out to see one another and the town; the day for visits, the beach and the river bank.
• Kolam patterns in rice flour are drawn larger than any other day, and the morning is the year's competition.

At the table

Sakkarai pongal (sweet, with jaggery, cashew and ghee) and ven pongal (savoury, with pepper and cumin), sugarcane chewed from the stalk, and the freshly boiled turmeric root.

More harvest festivals