The Celestial Fight!

And then the day of Pongal dawned as always. There was this lingering confusion still as to what exact time should the pongal be ‘pong’ged!! (the time when the khichdi within the cooker vessel boils and ebbs out of the container). This to be done after surpassing the rahukaala , the yamakantha and the likes. In south indian customs (customsoh ille kashtamso) unable to decide yet.

Now not less than 7 opinions floated about the time of the pongal getting to swell in the cooker. There began the celestial fight between the Sun god and the maaseeka calendar his creation , the humble human being created looking up at the movements of His (Solar) Systems! Call it wrong data entry? Or linguistic differences in notations of times? for tamilians have the festival today and kannidigas do the imaginary rounds tomorrow!

1st opinion said the ‘thai’ maasam begins only at 4pm , but then the rising sun is what is worshipped always so the good time to do the swell is between 1.10pm to 2pm and the likes. (the same story had 2 variations which I did not understand)

2nd opinion said the rahukaala or yamakandam one of the 2 is between 9am to 10.30am so the pongal can ‘pong’ between 10.30am to 11.30am. beyond 11.30am the yamakandam or rahukaala one of the 2 continue over the indian segment of the world. So better pull your sleeves up and finish the swell story by then ha..

3rd opinion said 11.30am to 12.30am is a good time!

4th opinion said something more for sure..by then my grey cells shut down and I had begun forming my own opinion!

Alright! Its algebra! Go girl go! What would you want to do. I tell myself, okay.. if I do the neivedya by 11.30 itself.. I will end up celebrating a ‘Maarghazhi Pongal’ and not a ‘Thai Pongal’. Which to me sounds wrong! Arrey kya basics main goof up math kar..thoda ‘math’ kar, maths!. So timed such that I finished with the pooja decos and got FIL and kids to start with the pooja , flower shower , shloka power and the likes!

Thereby, lord ganesha was invoked first, then the sun god, then came fillers, subramanya shlokas (buy 2 get 1 free haan)! By then I made sure the pongal base rice and moong daal is kept to swell accordingly. The clock read 11.28am the fountain over the whistle less cooker lid happened. Happily all of us told one another ‘ Pongalooo pongal’! and I made sure almost everyone saw the ‘Ponging’ (the sight of which is symbolic of happiness to swell in our lives! Love the logic personally!!

Meanwhile remember! The ‘Thai’ maasam was not to begin until 1.10pm! So I parallely finish up with basic cooking a sabzi and a rasam, what with sakkarai pongal, venn pongal and ulutham vadais in tow, the former two shall suffer a steppy treatment! Then it did, it struck 1.10pm and lo our prasadams were all ready, there happened the dhoopam , deepam, neivedyam and karpoora aarathi. Then the ‘one minute pause’ before the above were relished!

But the fun I get when I see my kids relish the vadai, the sakkarai pongal and the ven pongal soon after they get prepared. Poor Sun God has no say here since he’s just shown the containers with the sweets and savouries. For it’s a herculian task to keep the kids at bay until the mangalaarathi thatte (plate) with the lit karpoora goes down after the vicious circles to the imaginary Sun God brought alive with yours truly’s kolams :-P. I had to keep warning the kids to allow the neivedhyam containers atleast for a minute in the pooja room. A minute celestially is supposed to be thousand years eh! Like always man alters customs to his convenience!

Remember Arjun Sarja’s last dialogue in the movie ‘Mudhalvan’ Enna sir ennayum kolaigaaranaa aakitingale’ :-P

But had the consolation that I did not do a ‘Maargazhi Pongal’ and did the right one instead! Call me dumb head go people go ;-)! 
Jokes apart! These are what make a festival day fun to us isn't it! 

Proud to be an Indian! Jai Ho!