Happy Pongal! pongal vazhthukual!

[Guest guest]

Pongal Feast Jan. 17, 2008

 

Today we were taken to a small village about 20 KM North of

Tiruvannamalai. We were taken by our driver, who is making a point of

including us within his family's Pongal activities.

 

Just a few KM North out of Tiruvannamalai there are more small hills,

and the land use changes to a forest of small trees. Maybe the

biggest are 15 feet tall. Then to one side comes a big shallow lake,

where there are many areas where trees are growing. I could not tell

if these were islands or a lake edge. The lake seemed to be several

KM long. On the other side of the road were the farm fields typical

to this region.

 

There was a paved road all the way to this village, and in the

village itself. The village is where our driver's mother's mother

lives. The village had at its center a small temple with brightly

painted gods on top. There was a cement road perhaps 100 M into the

village with small houses on each side. We were told that we were the

first westerners to ever visit this village. The seemed to be less

than 100 people who lived in this village.

 

At one end of the village was the lake we had seen from the road. We

saw some small fish in the lake and some kind of crane on the other

side. We had seen trees where perhaps 50 of these cranes were sitting

driving by the lake. The villagers said that they used poles and

hooks and catch fish from the lake.

 

The feast activities started with a goat that was sacrificed for the

meal. When we first came into the village we were asked if we wanted

to watch this. We did not. We saw the goat being led off. Then the

next time we saw it, it was being skinned. Then it seemed like the

whole village got involved with preparation. The men were cutting it

up. They used machetes, with a piece of wood underneath to do the

gross cutting up of the goat. Then a man sat down with a kind of

knife that had a frame beneath it. The man sat, holding down the

frame of the knife with his feet. The blade was vertical, sticking

up. He used this to cut the meat from the bones. This was thrown into

a pot of water where the women cleaned it further. Other men were

cutting up the internal organs like the liver and keeping this

separate. The scraps were thrown to the side where they were eaten by

dogs.

 

Then the cooking started. This was done in the biggest pot I have

ever seen, maybe 1 M wide and deep, stainless steel. The pot was

resting on three concrete bricks, with a wood fire for heat. First

maybe a gallon of `ground nut oil' (peanut oil) was put into the pot.

Then spices. Those that I knew were maybe 50 bay leaves, maybe ¼ C

anise, 25 whole cloves, some others that I don't yet know, maybe 1

quart of whole serano chilies (or their Indian equivalent). These

cooked for a while. It was men doing the cooking, the only time I

have seen Indian men cooking. I think this was at least partially

because a man has the strength to stir the pot. The `ladle' was about

1.5 meters long, with a spoon about 15 mm wide. They then added about

2 quarts of cut onions and cooked them a while, then a similar amount

of tomatoes, and about 1.5 litres of garlic. Then they added the

meat. When the meat was cooked they added maybe 2 gallons of rice and

4 gallons water, and cooked for a while. During this, after a while

they put a lit on the pot, and put the coals from the first on the

lid to add heat from the top. When this was cooked, there was then a

kind of crust on the top of the dish. They called the dish `Goat

Biryani. "

 

While this was going on, the girls in the village had discovered my

wife. Small girls, maybe 7 years old, were hanging onto both hands.

They were talking (In Tamil). We understood only a few words. We did

things like say the names of parts of the body in Teamil, count from

1 to 20 in Tamil and count from 1 to 100 in English. Carol started

singing a kids song, `Dance the hokey Pokey' and going through the

actions - put you right foot in, put your right foot out, do the

hokey pokey and shake it all about (while turning a circle and

dancing), etc. The kids (boys and girls) sang along with her and did

the motions with her. They did not want her to stop.

 

As the feast was cooking we heard drums from the other side of the

village. We walked up to see. There was a crowd of men with women an

d children on the sidelines. On the other side of the men were

two `chariots' where they had taken out the village gods from their

temples for the day. In the West, the `gods' stay in the temples. In

India the gods are a part of daily life, and on festival days are

taken out of the temple and paraded around, so the gods take part in

the festival too.

 

The men were dancing, one of two at a time. This reminded my wife of

Greece, where only the men dance. In one dance, it looked like the

men were doing standing intercourse with each other. While this was

going on, the crowd tried to remove the dhoti from one of them men as

he was dancing. He did not cooperate. I saw one man who looked very

drunk. I suspect he was not the only one who had been drinking.

 

They paraded the chariots through the village next, to the house

where the food was being prepared. They did a puja to the gods there.

Then they took the chariots up the street, and everybody ate. We ate

the ceremonial meal, though we usually eat vegetarian here. They gave

us seats of honor (we had a bamboo mat to sit on, No one else did.).

Our driver sat next to us. His wife served us. We were served first.

Delicious meal, and all ate with relish. Altogether this took about

five hours.

 

Without the invitation from our driver, this village Pongal feast

would not have been something that we could ever see. This kind of

group meal is only done one time each year, so it is really a big

event in the village.

 

After we got home and were collapsed on our chairs, exhausted and

resting, then was a knock on the door. There was the mother from the

family that is our grounds keepers. She did not know that we went to

a Pongal feast, and brought us a dish - chicken - from their feast.

It looks like high caste Tamils are usually vegetarian, while lower

caste people are not. She also made us rice to go with this. We just

put them into the refrigerator and were in bed before 9 PM.

 

Pongal is over now. It is a four day event, celebrated mainly in

Tamil Nadu (I think).

 

Not two,

Richard