'SWEET' PONGAL, ANOTHER NEW YEAR

Another Pongal, the exclusively Thamilzh harvest festival, is here. This time, with the additional distinction of being the Thamizh New Year. So that is two New Years in a month.

Sometime last year, the Tamilnadu Government changed the Thamizh New Year date from the first date of the month Chithrai to Thai 1. So this is the first Pongal with the tag ‘New Year’. (The Thamizh year last year which was born in April , Sarvadhari, dies a premature death at eight months, and the new year Virodhi comes early to us. But I find that some calendars are holding on to Sarvadhari till April. Utter confusion).

And guess who is sponsoring my ‘sakkarai pongal’, the special sweet dish made on Pongal day?

To make Pongal a ‘Happy’ New Year, the Tamilnadu government is presenting to all ration card holders a gift of the required ingredients for the ‘sakkarai pongal’. The packet includes – half a kilo each of rice and jaggery, a 100gms of 'pasi paruppu' (moong dal), and a small pack of cashew nuts, raisins and cardamoms. (There is no ghee).

The lady who works at the ration shop where I picked up my packet told me there are almost 2000 cardholders attached to the shop. Multiply this by the number of shops in the whole of Tamilnadu, and you come up with a mind-boggling number. Assuming that the package cost, on an average Rs. 25 (this is a very, very low estimate), what will the total amount spent be! And where is the money coming from? Certainly not anybody’s personal funds, I am sure. It is the tax payers’ money, which is why I went to collect my packet – I had already paid for it.

Free colour TVs, free gas stoves, free spices and condiments, whatever next!

Happy New Year, and Happy Pongal!

An edited news-report version of this appeared in the Mylapore Times dated Jan. 10, 2009.

"HAPPY PONGAL NEW YEAR"

“Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M Karunanidhi today said the harvest festival Pongal, which falls on the first day of Tamil month 'Thai', would be soon made the official Tamil New Year Day.” This was the interesting bit of a news item in The Hindu last week. He said about 500 Tamil scholars had deliberated and arrived at the decision to change the Tamil New Year from the first day of 'Chithirai' month to the first day of 'Thai'.

Now after all these hundreds of years, someone has realised that it is appropriate to start the New Year on the first day of thai maasam. Is there any benefit? If so, to whom? Who cares! What does it matter if all these years the month of Chithirai, starting mid April, has been the first month in the Thamizh calendar! Is accuracy in marking years so important? Isn’t it more important to pamper and massage the ego of the Thamizh masses who can get hysterical in their passion for Thamizh and Thamizh culture? They have recently managed to get the Supreme Court to change its stand on abolishing the jallikkattu, the traditional and cruel bull fight, which can harm both the bull and the man who fights to tame it.

And how do we go about changing the year? Do we lop off the first three months of the next year? Or merely add them to the existing year so there are 15 months this year?

And when the next Government takes over, it may choose to declare the month of Deepavali as the first month of the year, since that is celebrated in a grander manner.

Personally I feel that celebrating Pongal, which is fundamentally a thanksgiving harvest festival, is totally irrelevant in an urban context. Nobody owns a cent of agricultural land, or has even seen a cow – let alone own one. Children in cities think milk comes out of packets, not having seen any cows. Sure, it is significant to the agriculturist, and so let it remain just that, a harvest festival. And not be converted to New Year.