For those of you who don't know, which should be everyone, the Pongal festival is a harvest festival commemorating the past farming season. Old clothes are thrown away and burned, rice is made in new pots til they boil over signifying the abundance they hope will come, and thanks are offered to cows and buffaloes for plowing the fields. Pongal is held on the 14th of January every year in accordance with a solar calendar following the sun's movement into the capricorn zodiac. I bring this up because we came across a private school the other day, just by chance, that was preparing for the Pongal festivities coming up. Here are some pictures of the kids.
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| farmers |
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| fortune teller and his ox |
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| blessing the children |
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| fancy dolled up cow dung | |
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| dancing around the cow dung | |
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| wishing cow bowing |
I love how colorful it all is! I love the decorated cow crap--wonderful! We should celebrate Pongal when you come back and use Genghis as a cow substitute and decorate his crap-haha. I don't mean to poke too much fun, i should be more sensitive to the cultural, huh.
ReplyDeleteI can't believe they decorate cow poop and then dance around it! That does it. You are not allowed to be in charge of any activities when you come back. Culture is one thing. Poop is another!
ReplyDeleteThat's so cool that you just ran into this by chance. What a world.
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