Mattu Pongal Day in Village

In the recent Pongal days, the most I enjoyed one was Mattu pongal, which I spent in my mom’s aunty village. After my grandpa left all his bulls, years back we dint get change to celebrate the Mattu Pongal. Nowadays my thoughts, interest and wishes on villages and farming have increased, so that would be the reason for me to visit the village on mattu pongal day. I think its not only the farmers to celebrate this mattu pongal, every one who eats rice from the paddy should also celebrate the mattu pongal to thank the cattle’s for their handworks on the earth. Its wonder u know to see a village with green fields, with cattle’s and still alive in the same position till now as I see from years. When it was few km’s from Chennai, when the surrounding places are changing as Engineering collages and IT parks.

It was mid afternoon, when we drive in the dusty old mahabalipuram road in the hot sun. This village is near Thiruporur, one side it was ex-salt pan areas, unfitted for agriculture, and the other side has good soil and water facilities. Mostly we visit to this village in summer times, so the lake would be dry with little water, but to my surprise the lake was filled with water and buffaloes were swimming. When we arrive, the people in the village were preparing their bulls for the Mattu Pongal, with colorful paintings on their horns and the bull carts, with balloons hanging. We spend some times in the fields; the green field was a beautiful scene to adore and the water from the pump set was great.

In evening the bulls come to its place where they gather. One my one was took bath by our relatives and their horns were daub my turmeric and kumgumama (crimson powder) kept in his head, tail… new color cord were tied in his neck and mango leafs around its horn, the bulls were very quite with out any wayward. There was this cute white calf, looks very attractive in his bell tied cord; its hairs were very soft, it was pleasant when it runs. Have seen many goats, but this one was special with long ears. The village smell and the evening cool breeze have an awesome sense, I feel it after a long time. The evening was gorgeous as the sky was color of dark pink. When they were preparing to worship, I notice some colorful bull carts with children having fun on traveling in the cart, they were rounding the village. All bulls and plough objects were given camphor adoration and myrrh smoke was shown to it. It was very dark and the camera flash gives problem so the nigh pic was very dark. It went 8 .30 pm in night when we left the village, we had a good dinner in the village; the taste of the Karakulambe was great. More Pictures here

Pongal Day

It’s my wish to celebrate the Pongal in the traditional way, even though we had no way to bring the old style of the pongal, which celebrates, in village sides. This year we (Tamil Nadu) faced a new equality pongal with out seeing the religions all were gather and celebrate. As I said in my recent post most people in cities use the other vessels than sand pot to cook pongal. I had a point that I should not give it, so urged my parents to buy a new sand pot for the pongal, even though we had a old pot, I needed only new ones. Wake up early to do not miss the special programs on TV; the pongal was over flowing from the Pot when the sun was on the top, rushed to click a snap of it.

Placing the pot in the center of the kolam on the opened gateway, it naturally took us to the traditional way, when we showing the camphor adoration to the pongal pot, and the sun; shouting Pongalo Pongal was very warm that we had a best one forever. We also got some support from a neighbor for the equality pongal. The best wishes would be from them, as they feel happy by the way we celebrate it and we also shared the sweets and pongal with them. I felt that in my apartment most don’t likes to share the festivals or the enjoyment with others, except some whom like the one who comes forward interestedly to share the pongal. Now I really miss my old neighbors in my old place who are even ready to put love fight with us for their share in our pongal. How sweet it was!!

The place was very silent, only parents, my grandma and me were presented to worship the sun. My bro was off from this as he was wandering with his friends for the first day ticket for new release films. Even thought it was bore time, I was happy that we are celebrating our festival in good mood.

Bhogi day

The 4 days of Pongal celebrations has end! As I can tell this year I had a best pongal’s forever, my parents agreed with me to celebrate it with my wishes. The Bhogi plan was to wake up early and visit my cousin’s bhogi celebration, but when we reach, he was sleeping and my aunty has burned some thing. I have noticed some Bhogi fire’s near my place and took some pictures, it was funny to click the fire that the kids were asking are u from SunTv. Even though the pollution board and police warned of burning tyre, I saw some used the tyres to burn, but the awareness has helped the people, compare to last years this year the smoke was low and the fog was little. This would be the first time I went to beach early morning after my childhood, the place was very silent, many were going walking and got a good view of sunrise. I should tell I give my mom more stress to draw big Kolam before the gateway, some of my neighbors have gone to their homeland in their cars, so we got much space to put big kolams. I need to share more about my pongal and Mattu pongal, will do it in my next post ok. (click on the pic to see big)

Pongal and Bull Dung!!

Above is my Pongal Pot, which I did two days back with cotton, painting the pot and the paper karumbu (sugar cane), was kept in our showcase.

Thai Pongal(boiling) was a traditional festival of Tamilan’s, which flows (celebrated) during the first four days of Thai Month (mid-January) according to Tamil calendar. Each day refers a special and it calls as Bhogi, Pongal, Mattu (bull) Pongal & Kaanum Pongal. This was my favorite festival always. This was the day we used to thank the Nature, and we can also call this day a new year for our farmers. After the yearlong hard works of plough the soil to make it a good one for cultivate; then seeding the paddy; transplant in to another spacious place and leaving water till it reaches the stage of Harvest, the farmers spent there whole energies to see their paddy are grown well. So to express their happiness by thanking the god they celebrate this Pongal.

The Mattu Pongal is the day to thank the cattle’s, esp. the bulls that helps us to the agriculture. We not only take the energy of bulls, even their dung’s are used for this pongal festival. As it was the Thai first, the next month of the Margazi which was the season for kolam (making a design with rice flour). On this time and on pongal days people used the dissolved bull dung to create a smear before their gateway to draw the kolam. Now days we can only see this smears in the villages of Tamil Nadu, once it was also available to see the smears in chennai some years back. The kolam gets an exquisite when it was put on dung smear floor in rice flour. And it considered auspicious to make the kolams before sunrise, as the Sun God feels welcome before it visit the earth. To bring more attracts to the kolam, a lump of cow dung will places at the center of the kolam and a five petal pumpkin flower will rests on it regarded as a symbol of fertility and an offering of love to the deity.

I have seen some of these incidents near my house at least before 10 years back, the friendly neighbors used to follow this way of putting kolam, some times their would be little fight with others for the bull dung. On the day of Bhogi I noticed many people come to my grandpa house to collect the dung for putting kolam. As we are in the Margazi season, the gateway of my neighbor’s friend’s house would have a thick dung smear floor and as it would be very smooth and our evening hours of sitting, playing and talking with friends will be on that floor, some times even we get scold from the neighbors for braking the dung floor, esp. for leaving tops on that.

It was familiar in villages to cook the pongal, keeping the pot in the middle of the kolam in the dung smear floor with the oven which was daub by the bull dung, some times this pongal was cooked on burning the dried dung cakes. In the villages the people who have mud houses and who already have floors daub by dung for their house, use the bull dung to daub for the Pongal celebration, like how we clean our house with whitewashing the walls. Actually today's situation was, we are missing the real pongal. If we see most of them are cooking the Pongal in Cooker and steel vessels, mostly the people in cities and urban areas. Because of this we miss the real taste of pongal, which prepared in sand pot. Nowadays all of them have gas stoves, so making pongal in firewood’s and dried bull dung have reduced and it also changed the taste. I can’t forget the sweet pongal cooked on the dried dung cake were my mom prepare in the month of Aadi in the Amman Temple. With our forgetting our traditional way of celebrating, at least let we all try to continue with its nature… Wish you all a beautiful pongal with sand pot, sugarcane and more sweets. HAPPY PONGALO PONGAL:)

One of the Greatest Achievement

We did we did…. Today, Indian space technology saw a milestone in its history by the successfully launch of Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C7) carrying four satellites at a time to the space, after the lost of India's Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV-F02), on INSAT-4C Mission last year.

In a small island Sriharikota, off the Andhra Pradesh coast, with the backdrop of the shallow backwaters of the Pulicat Lake and the morning clean sky, gave way to the PSLV-C7 to lift off from the first launch pad at 9.23am. In the first time of History India launches 4 satellites, India’s CARTOSAT-2 and Space capsule Recovery Experiment (SRE-1), Indonesia’s LAPAN-TUBSAT and Argentina’s PEHUENSAT-1 into a 635 km high polar orbit. The four satellites have been placed in a polar orbit at an altitude of 637 km with an inclination of 97.9 deg with respect to the equator.

The 44meter tall PSLV has a lift-off mass of 295 tonne. This is the 10th successful flight so far, since 1994. CARTOSAT-2, the twelfth in the Indian Remote Sensing satellite series, is an advanced remote sensing satellite capable of providing scene-specific spot imagery. It will join the other six IRS satellites, which are in service. It carries a panchromatic camera to provide imageries with a spatial resolution of better than one meter and a swath of 9.6 km. The data from the satellite will be used for cartographic applications at cadastral level, urban and rural infrastructure development and management, as well as applications in land information system and geographical information system.

For the First time, India test the Space capsule Recovery Experiment (SRE-1), developed by ISRO’s with 550 kg capsule, intended to demonstrate the technology of an orbiting platform for performing experiments in microgravity conditions that takes India into an elite club of countries that have satellite re-entry technology. This SRI-1 will stay in orbit for between 13 to 30 days and is expected to splash down into the Bay of Bengal for recovery. SRE-1 mission will provide valuable experience in such important fields like navigation, guidance and control during the re-entry phase. Two days before de-orbiting, it will place in a Repetitive Elliptical Orbit. Subsequently, it will be reoriented and deboost rocket is fired to make it reenter the earth’s atmosphere. Close loop guidance system is employed during deboost and coasting phases leading to its recovery. On re-entry, after initial aerodynamic braking, a parachute system will reduce the touch down velocity and will splashdown in the Bay of Bengal, east of Sriharikota coast. A floatation system will keep SRE afloat and enables its recovery.

From this success, India becomes the 4th developed country in Space Technology after the fore front countries of U.S., Russia and China. We have to be proud about our scientists. I congrats and wish them to success in each and every plans.