Residents of Singilipatti village near here witnessed ‘Mattu Pongal’ for the first time in their lives, when the members of a women Self Help Group organised special programmes and offered worship on Friday.
A cross section of the people said that once in the past, a dog had eaten the sweet Pongal offered to the cattle after prayers.
The people then took it as a bad omen and stopped celebrating the festival for decades. When some people did celebrate ‘Mattu Pongal’ in later years, they suffered in the form of loss of cattle, and family members getting affected by mysterious diseases.
According to 72-year-old R. Elango, a retired school headmaster and former president of Singilipatti village panchayat, he has not seen people celebrating ‘Mattu Pongal’ in the village in his whole lifetime.
“I come to understand that four generations have not witnessed ‘Mattu Pongal’ in the village,” he says.
Mr. Elango, when he was panchayat president (2001-06), tried to celebrate ‘Mattu Pongal’ as a public event, but no one came forward to join him.
Awareness
“Since then I have been trying to create awareness among the people on the need to do away with such myths and have been celebrating the event in a small way every year. I am hopeful that year’s celebration by a self-help group will pave way for more people joining the celebrations next year,” he said.
