By Amina Ali
A Nottingham Tamil charity is preparing for an annual Hindu harvest festival.
The Nottingham Tamil Kuzhumams’ (NTK) Pongal event will be held on Saturday, January 18, and will feature live cooking, games and food.
NTK founder Ramachandran ‘Ram’ Venkatachalam said: “Pongal is one of the festivals in Southern India but it’s more famous in the state, Tamil Nadu.”
The four-day harvest festival includes many rituals, such as cleaning the house, making Pongal, praying and spending time with family and friends.
“On day two, we make the dish, Pongal, which is a rice and daal dish that can be savoury or sweet,” Ram said.
“We put the pot outside and thank the sun God. So, when the sun rises in the morning, we make Pongal, and we pray to the sun God because sun is critical for the farming,” he explained.
The event this year will include a live Pongal-making session, which was introduced last year.
Ram said: “We’ll arrange the Pongal pot and cooking things outside and then ask the community if anyone is interested in live cooking.
“We’ll then form teams – four or five families come together in one station and do the live cooking.
“We kind of have a competition where they can put different fillings and ingredients within the Pongal. The judges will go around to taste it, and we give prizes to them. That’s one of things which everyone likes,” he said.
Another game the charity wants to include is called Uriyadi, which is where people tie a pot up high, blindfold someone and watch them try to hit it.
“We started that last year, and it’s welcomed, especially by the kids,” Ram said.
“Slowly we are adding many things to the event to make sure that people are not missing anything.
“When people arrive here, they think they’ll be alone,” Ram said.
“But we’ve made a system where people feel part of a family here. They know the value and they really feel a lot when they have to go back home.”
Ticket prices and further details of the event can be found on the NTKs Instagram page here.
