The Pongal Festival

The Pongal festival celebrated in Malaysia last week is a traditional harvest festival widely celebrated by Indians of Tamil decent, all over the world.

During the Pongal festival, milk is boiled in a clay pot until it overflows. Then, rice, sugar, raisins and cashew nuts are added inside.

Pongal in Tamil means "boiling over or spill over." The boiling over of milk in the clay pot symbolizes material abundance for the household. Pongal is celebrated at harvest time, is traditionally intended to thank the Sun God and farmstead livestock that helped create the material abundance.

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