Wednesday, February 1

Today women celebrate pongala and Rajeev has taken us to the local Devi temple to see it in action.

According to Wikipedia the Pongala festival may have started over 1,000 years ago. “The name ‘Pongala’ means ‘to boil over’ and refers to the ritualistic offering of porridge made of rice, sweet brown molasses, coconut gratings, nuts and raisins. Generally women devotees participate in this ritual.”

I photographed some of the pots cooking the porridge at the roadside. When we go into the temple we will meet a lot of people we know by sight, and some whom we know to talk to.