January 2017

The year started with the usual display of fireworks at Straits Quay....easily the best in Penang.

It has been a very unusual January….the 6^th in our house in Penang. The weather dictates many things; moods and activities and the weather has been wet and that has certainly curtailed photographic outings .............but some of us remained relaxed.

Helen has resumed her teaching schedule and we have also been steady with guests. They come in all flavours but one American who extended his original two nights with us was a delight to have. Forrest was a man of many parts an accomplished musician and IT expert he was having a break from the US and just following his nose. As the ecological systems know…..we could do with more Forrests. We also had a Chinese family with a small child who had sticky fingers and ‘absent’ parents.

Our friend Elaine, who has looked after Coco for us, had a stroke. Which was a shock, but she seems on her way to recovery. Helen had been out with Elaine and her husband Bill a few days earlier.

On the entertainment front we have had a good run in the Pub Quiz…being in the medals for 6 weeks on the trot….with three first placings.

More Vodka

I have written a separate article on the Maatu Pongal and this month we have Thaipusam that is imbedded within the Chinese New Year celebrations.

My photographic ventures are not at full volume. Normally at this time of the year the Chestnut-headed Bee-eaters would be nesting at Penanti. Last year the numbers were heavily reduced and I am afraid they have not really turned up at all this year. Two birds make an appearance like they mean business but do not stay around. They are local birds so must have found another spot to nest.

I have made one trip to Byram and there was some modest return. A wire fence erected several years back has made shooting difficult but this is degenerating and I am sure with some assistance we may be back to normal conditions shortly.

This is a common Tailorbird....we have them around home and they have eluded me for years. They are small, loud and stitch leaves together to make a nest.

My photographic stalwarts again have been my beloved Kingfisher pair. They are going through the same routine prior to nesting that I have seen before. I continue to learn a lot about them as a species; from their feather colour to their relationship. I thought the male was feeding the female who should be about to lay eggs (what a man)……….but I find it is worse…the female is feeding one of last years chicks who is quite capable of feeding himself. She is such a beautiful bird….but with a bad habit

Last years chick is on the right...about to accept free food

Greeting between partners

 I have covered details on how this shot came about. The ejected but not extinguished cigarette butt was mistaken by the Kingfisher for a moving insect....it even got a good bashing before the smoking sequence.

My other addiction…sports has been well-served. The World Indoor Bowling champs have just finished in England and all the games were available live on Youtube…..makes my bowling arm very itchy.

The Sydney sevens is currently live on TV as was the one from a depleted series in Wellington. The 6 Nations has also started which is good. I reckoned Ireland may run out series winners but not on last night’s form. Even Scotland look more formidable this year

Locally the Otters apparently have had another brood although it has been difficult to spot them. You can smell them at times when they den along the walkway. The work on the offshore island seems to have slowed down. It is literally going to take years for that to be completed.

At home we got sick of a crappy backyard and a lawn that had many bald patches and ant nests. We therefore had stone paving put down and now only have to worry only about the plethora of dropping leaves. We have also had our existing lawn replaced after the contractor made a mess with something else……sort of guilt payment. The wettish weather has got the fledgling lawn off to a good start and I have also got the irrigation system running properly after it languished for several years with bad programming.

With the film Oscar season approaching we have viewed illicit copies of a number of the contenders.

I personally liked 'Sully', 'Hacksaw Ridge" and  'The Man who knew Affinity'. Interestingly they are all true stories. We saw an older film with Bill Connelly at Straits Quay and really liked it too.

The bread and pie manufacturing continues but currently the sausage stores don't need replenishing.

Celebrating Maatu Pongal in Penang, Malaysia

Celebrating Maatu Pongal in Penang, Malaysia

Thai Pongal is a four-day Tamil harvest festival that according the Gregorian Calendar is normally celebrated from the 14^th to the 16^th of January. This corresponds to the last day of the Tamil month Maarghazi to the third day of the Tamil month Thai. Thai Pongal is one of the most important festivals celebrated by Tamil people in the Indian State of Tamil Nadu and Tamils worldwide, included those in Malaysia. The days marks the start of the sun’s six-month-long journey northwards. Thai Pongal is mainly celebrated to convey appreciation to the Sun God for a successful harvest. Thai refers to the tenth month of the Tamil calendar and Pongal usually means festival or celebration….it more specifically translates as ‘boiling over’ or ‘overflow’. Pongal is also the name of the sweetened dish of rice boiled with lentils that is ritually consumed on this day. Symbolically Pongal signifies the gradual heating of the earth as the Sun travels northwards to the equinox.

Pongal dish

Besides rice and milk the ingredients of the sweet dish include cardamom, raisins, Green gram (Mung beans) and cashew nuts. Cooking is done in sunlight, usually in a porch or courtyard, as the dish is dedicated to the Sun god, Surya. The cooking is done in a clay pot that is decorated with coloured patterns called Kolam. Pongal has two variants, one sweet and one savoury and it is served on banana leaves.

Jaggery (undistilled sugar cane or palm sugar concentrate) is added to sweeten the Pongal.

The days of the festival

Bhogi.

The day preceding Pongal is called Bhogi. On this day people discard old belongings and celebrate new possessions. The people assemble at dawn in Tamil Nadu to light a bonfire to burn the discards. Houses are cleaned, painted and decorated to give a festive look.

Thai Pongal

The main event takes place on the second day of the four days. During the festival, milk is cooked in a vessel and when it starts to bubble and overflows out of the vessel, freshly harvested rice is added to the pot. 

Sometimes the overflowing gets a bit boisterous.

 Pongal is served to everyone in the house along with savouries and sweets. Tamils decorate their homes with banana and mango leaves and embellish the floor with decorative patterns drawn using rice flour. Kolams are drawn on the doorsteps and family elders present gifts to the young.

Maatu Pongal

Matu Pongal is celebrated on the day after Thai Pongal. Tamils regard cattle as sources of wealth for providing dairy products, fertilizer and labour for plowing and transportation. On Maatu Pongal, cattle are recognized and treated affectionately. On this day celebrants bath and decorate their cattle with garlands. Cows are painted with turmeric water and oil. Kumkum (shown below) is painted on their foreheads and their horns are painted.

The cows are fed a mixture of venn Pongal, jaggery, honey, banana cooked goodies and other fruit.

Traditionally torches are lit and cattle are spiritually blessed or negative spirits relating to cattle ownership exorcised.

Kaanum Pongal

Kaanum Pongal, the fourth day of the festival, marks the end of Pongal festivities for the year. The word kaanum in this context means ‘to visit’. Many families hold reunions on this day. Celebrants chew sugar cane and again decorate their houses with Kolam. Relatives and friends receive thanks for their assistance supporting the harvest. In the community we visited in Penang....it was designated ladies day where the young maidens went to the temple to find suitors.

Penang Pongal

There are clearly regional variations on how Pongal is celebrated. When I first arrived in Penang and started photographing wildlife in the region I came across a fellow photographer Sanjeevi Gopal and we shared a number of adventures together. 

In several locations, we came across cows being sent out to graze on the road edges and in fields. These were owned by local Tamils who did not possess grazing fields but herded their cows to graze locally on ‘common’ land. At night they are returned to the to their shelters clustered in certain areas along the side of roads. In this situation because the cattle were not grazing family fields the young male cattle were sold to local Malays for Hari Raya celebrations while the females were used for breeding. While the Tamils continued their connection and gratitude to their cattle as local situations dictate it is different from regions in India.

In January of 2014 Jeevi took Helen and I to introduce us to several families celebrating the Maatu Pongal. We decided to take a friend to the celebrations again this year (2017). 

The celebrations begin in the early evening when the cows return to their respective barns after a day of grazing on roadside pasture.

A number of the cows had calves that were only days old.

The standout feature of these visits was how friendly the Tamil families were and how they embraced our curiosity and shared their food with us. Especially delightful were the children wearing their best and padding around the cow yards often in bare feet. 

Interestingly in a mixture of tradition and non-tradition one family we celebrated with were Christian and crosses adorned their pots and barn.

While the local Tamils are possibly not as connected to their cattle as those in rural Tamil Nadu it is great see traditions being kept in expatriate communities.