Thai Pongal

How it is kept

1. 01

   Bhogi fire before dawn and cleaning of the house

2. 02

   Pongal boiled over in a new clay pot facing the sun

3. 03

   Large rice-flour kolams and sugarcane at the door

4. 04

   Mattu Pongal: cattle decorated, fed and worshipped

5. 05

   Kaanum Pongal visits to family

01Four days of Thai

Bhogi, on the last day of Margazhi, clears out the old: worn things are burnt in a fire before dawn and houses are whitewashed. On Thai Pongal the kolam is drawn large in rice flour, sugarcane stalks are tied at the door, and the pot, its neck wound with fresh turmeric and ginger plants, is set on a fire facing the rising sun. The first portion of the sweet pongal goes to Surya. Mattu Pongal honours the cattle: horns painted, bells hung, the animals fed pongal, and in the Madurai country the jallikattu at Alanganallur and Palamedu. Kaanum Pongal is for visiting kin and picnics by rivers.

02Thai in Tamil memory

Sangam poetry speaks of the Thai neeradal, the ritual bath of young women in the river in the month of Thai, and the Paripadal sings of it on the Vaigai at Madurai. A Tamil saying holds that when Thai is born, a way is born, thai pirandhal vazhi pirakkum, and families set weddings and new undertakings for the month. The Andal’s Tiruppavai, sung through the preceding month of Margazhi, prepares the ground; its thirty verses end the dawn worship just before Pongal.