Milk, rice and sugar-a festive concoction

Malaysia's Tamil Hindu community celebrated its best loved festival today, Ponggal.

As per sign of respect to my ancestors, I did my part as an Indian girl. Firstly, I woke up at 4am for the occasion and together with my sister as well as cousins, we dressed in our best sarees.

We started by cleaning and decorating the house by tying mango leaves at the entrance and drawing a Kolam at the porch with coloured rice.

My aunty brought out the pot tied with ginger and banana slices around it. We placed the pot on the bricks and assembled the firewood below it.

My aunty said, the reason we celebrate Ponggal is to pay our gratitude to mother earth and the sun for giving us a good harvest in another way for giving us food to eat.

My aunty started the fire and we took turns to pour the fresh milk into the ‘Ponggapanai’.

It took 20 minutes for the milk to boil and overflow . As the milk started boiling, we gathered around the pot and shouted ‘Ponggal-O-Ponggal’.

Later, we added rice and brown sugar to the milk and let the concoction cook for another 20 minutes. When it was ready, the first part of the sweet rice was offered to the Sun Lord along with boiled chickpeas, sweet milk bar and fruits.

As we were doing our offering my aunty said, " Girls pray for a good year ahead, as this day is also considered as our Tamil new year".