Saturday, April 14, 2007

How do we celebrate Tamil New Year

First and foremost அனைத்து தமிழ் நெஞ்சங்களுக்கும் எனது இனிய தமிழ் புத்தண்டு நல் வாழ்த்துக்கள்.

Thru this article I shall write a little about how we celebrate Tamil New Year, when I was living in our village during my childhood days. It has been many years since I have lived such a life and I hope to bring back you all the same way I used to celebrate when I was Young. If you have lived similar village life of mine, Please add your comments if you find something is missing.

Once we have taken bath before the sun rise we pray to Sun god in the early morning as it is a new beginning of the year, believed to have a good source of energy delivered. We also go to temple and pray to God. After that we pray at home and then we will go to our paddy field. In there we perform pooja with all the auspicious items by placing them in the Esaani Moolai ( South East Corner) at the paddy field. Then we make few rounds to loosen the sand with yer or kalappai (wooden item used to loosen sand). It is believed that doing so in New Year will give a good cultivation result(அதாங்க, நல்ல மகசூல் அல்லது சாகுபடி).

Then we all will come back and have good meals on that day, but only vegetarian diet is followed. On this day is a big revenue making day for all kids as all the elderly people will bless all small kids with small amount of money as well. Those small kids who needs to be taught to learn how to write also they practice them by holding their hand with basic letters in Tamil. Local shop owners they will open a new day book account note as its believed that it will also yield them a good revenue in the whole year.

Later in the evening all the people including village president and other village administrative people and the residents will join together to listen to the reading of Vackya Panjangam.

Followed by this we also have a Festival called Chithirai Festival and we eat Nila Choru (moon rice) on chitra Pournami (The First pournami of the Tamil New Year). I will try to post some interesting pictures taken during the last Chithirai Festival and information related to the celebration during that period. Please wait for just two more weeks.

அம்புட்டு தாங்கோ... If you wanna say anything more please do so...

1 comment:

Shalini Gowrisankar said...

Hey! thanks for dropping by my blog..

I would also like to add, in our family they also do this chutney like thing which have all the flavours like sweet,bitter and the taste of ginger etc .. but the sweetness overshadows everything else.. They say this denotes the forthcoming year which will involve all kinds of experience :)