Pongal-The Tamil Festival.

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Friends today, i.e. 14 January is a very important festival to the Tamil community throughout the world. Basically this is not a religious festival, but it is something like a Harvest festival. In the olden times, as India was having agriculture as their main economy, the farmers used to thank Sun god for giving them a bountiful Harvest, and on this day we do puja to sun god by offering a sweet dish "Sarkari Pongal", which is made of rice, jaggery and ghee, we also make Vadai, which is some thing like a salted doughnut. We also offer raw sugar cane and raw turmeric roots to the sun god. The next day, is MattuPongal, which is in the honour of the cows, who have given us their milk products throughout the year, so to thank them, they are given a good wash, their horns painted and sweets are offered to them, and they are taken in a procession to house to house, where the women folk do puja to cow. All this might look like a Pagan festival, but recently I came to know from mylot that Hinduism is a Pagan Religion. There are so many other things like bull fights with bare hands, which are associated with Pongal. Well that is another story. Cheers.