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Happy Pongal/Makara Sankranthi/Lohri to everyone. For Tamilians pongal is another major festival. I love this time of the year, never missed being at home with grandparents for pongal. For the past 2 years after marriage , I am away from them and miss them badly. Pongal brings us lots of excitement, starting with pongal kolam, preparation of pongal, offering to sun god, etc etc…. There is a slight difference in the way pongal celebration is done in my in laws place and my mom’s place. From my mom’s side it is quite hectic and in- laws way of celebration is a little simpler. I have to follow my inlaws way of celebration 🙂

One work that I totally love is the pongal kolam/rangoli that we put in the front yard of our home. This is the way we chettiars prepare pongal. This kolam is not done with the regular rangoli powder, instead we use raw rice paste. It stays for a week, if we don’t disturb it. Me and my grandma we used to do this on the evening of the day before pongal. Some pictures from my archive on how we do it at my hometown. Pongal is usually done in pongal panai in both my in laws and my mom’s place and not in pressure cooker. I follow that method. Will post this way of preparation soon.

Chettinad_Pongal_Kolam

Chettinad_Pongal_Kolam1

In my in laws place, we make Sakkarai pongal, velai pongal. Kathirikai puli kuzhambhu, paruppu masiyal. Then we have parangikai, vazhakkai, avarakkai, sakaravali kizhanghu uppu poriyal.

In my mom’s place, we make sakkarai pongal, velai pongal. Kathirikai puli kuzhambhu, paruppu masiyal, palakai kootu, karunaikizhangu kuzhambhu. Then parangikai, vazhakkai, avarakai, sakarvali kizhanghu proiyal.

Usually at my hometown, after preparing all these, we make an offering to the sun god. Which is usually done at the front yard where we have some space. Then bring it to the pooja room and there we have one more kolam called nadu veetu kolam. We place these offerings on top of this kolam and pray. Then we happily eat them 🙂

Since we don’t have open space and it’s all carpet in my apartments here in US, I have planned to just do the nadu veetu kolam in our coffee table 😉 and do the offering to god. This is how it is.

Here is my preparation for tomorrow’s pongal 🙂

Nadu_Veetu_Kolam Pongal_Paanai_Kolam

 

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