Idli, dosa and pongal are the big three in this part of the gastronomic world. The trinity of South Indian breakfast, they cannot be listed in any order of importance. Therefore, idli and dosa have a reason to feel wronged that a festival has been named after pongal — and none after any of them.
Their unhappiness is obviously bound to escalate around this time of the year. If they find themselves plonked next to pongal on a breakfast platter now, they are certain to make their discontent known to their more favoured cousin.
It’s easy to imagine the idli wiping a tear off her pudgy cheek and admitting to pongal that murder is on her mind during this season.
Most certainly, pongal will handle the delicate situation wisely. She has a story to assuage their hurt.
Pongal will begin her defence by letting her aggrieved cousins know that she has long ceased to be the prima donna of the festival. And she is right. Pongal is still the special dish but it’s no longer cooked in a manner that gave it rockstar attention.
Long-time residents of Chennai tell me that even in the extended areas and the outskirts, pongal preparation is not as elaborate and grand as before. In Sholinganallur, where a good number of the original settlers owned farmlands not very long ago and still own cattle, the traditional cooking of pongal has become a rare sight.
One of my sources, a woman who runs a shop in the neighbourhood, tells me that, even a decade ago, the finer points of the preparation would be carefully followed. At the entrance of any house, three pots would boil with pongal, one of them bigger than the other two. As even aliens in outer space would know, the pongal would be allowed to boil till it spilled over, signifying abundance and prosperity. This woman attributes the decline of this tradition to the now wider prevalence of gas stoves.
“It’s easier and less work,” she says. Similar observations pour in from other areas.
A pot-load of other traditions associated with pongal have either waned or disappeared. As we know, some of them have been banned.
Growing up in the Valasaravakkam of the 1980s, I have hazy memories of bullock carts crammed with rambunctious people heading off to some exciting place on Kannum Pongal Day. What remains etched in my mind is the sight of skies embellished with patches of colour. Kite-flying was a year-long addiction for the majority of the children and youngsters in the neighbourhood, but the pastime would reach dizzier heights during Pongal. Winning duels in the skies during the festival was an inexplicably fulfilling experience. Open grounds would be turned into arenas of cutthroat competition. Regulars would bring out their best kites, reserved just for the season. Ban on kite flying — justified in the light of the accidents caused by the slicing-sharp manja thread — has severed the link to this tradition.
With the children of today having sold their souls to a trove of digital addictions, it’s doubtful if any effort will be made to have the pastime restored in some form.
A couple of decades ago, having sugarcane during Pongal would assume almost ritualistic proportions. In the majority of the families, someone would peel the outer layer and slice the sugarcane into small, chewable pieces, place them in a large plate with a small dumping-bin kept nearby. Members of the family would keep returning to the plate to pick a juicy morsel and spit the chaff into the bin. Sometimes, they would assemble around the plate for a long sugarcane-chewing session, much in the manner of carefree bovines gathering in the middle of a busy road and chewing the cud.
Most kids today grow up on a diet of chocolates and don’t long for sugarcane as much as we did. And sugarcanes don’t knit the families together as they did before.
The form of celebration may have changed, but the spirit of the festival remains. Pongal will always be a cherished time. Besides helping us honour our farmers, it offers us the reassurance that hard work never fails. And that at the end of any toil is a rich harvest.
Kite-flying was a year-long addiction for the majority of the children in the neighbourhood, but the pastime would reach dizzier heights during Pongal
