Happy Pongal

I was at one of my favorite online greeting card sites yesterday looking for a birthday card to send to one of my peeps here at work, and had a deja vu moment.  On the home page for this site, they have listed all of the holidays and significant dates for the current month, and I saw that today, January 14, is Pongal.  This site even had a section where you can send out Pongal cards. I thought "WTF?"  This was Diwali revisited.  I looked at my wall calendar, and didn't see anything on there about Pongal, and then consulted my big leather planner book (aka my bible) and there was no mention of Pongal, either.  I looked back at the greeting card site and clicked on some of the Pongal cards just to see what they said; maybe I could find out more about the holiday by reading what the cards said.  Nothing.  They were generic "Happy Pongal" cards.  So I looked it up online and here's what I found:

Pongal is a popular harvest festival in South India. It's similar to our Thanksgiving.  Named after a sweet rice dish,  Pongal starts on January 14 of each year.  The celebration lasts for three days.   On the first day, Pongal is offered to Bhogi or Indran (the rain gods) for providing rain for the harvest (We'd really be celebrating, with all of the rain we've had in the past few weeks.). On the second day, pongal is offered to the sun (Surya).  On the third day,  the family's cattle (mattu) are cleaned and dressed up with flowers, bells, and color powder. This is the day to honor the cattle's hard work for plowing the fields. (I would love to see some pictures of this.)There is much excitement and preparation. New clothes are made or bought.(As much as I hate to do laundry, I could go along with this.) The homes and yards are cleaned days ahead. (Nope - wouldn't happen here.) Tasty aromas of Palakaram (sweet snacks) fill the air for days ahead. On the day of Pongal, early in the morning, everyone bathes and wears new clothes. (I don't want to assume falsely, but somehow I'm getting the vibe that they normally don't bathe as frequently as us.)