PONGAL, celebrated for 4 days, is a harvest feast-cum-new year celebration-featuring games and sacred cows. At the ashram, it’s reasonably low-key, but we could hear the celebrations across the road and (from my place) across the river.
BELOW, SOME RANDOM IMAGES…
Selecting the chalk for Rongolis (those chalk drawings, cf Pondicherry but imagine them 3x the size, in the village - Kulithalai) )
The Stars of Pongal (note the new fluorescent pink leads, through the nose behind the ears)
At Ananda, we have curd (as good as Greek yogurt) at every meal. It’s from the cows. My coffee (Nescafe) and others’ tea are both laced with sweet milk – thank you, Sister Cow. The banana cream we have for breakfast is made from one or two of the three banana varieties (even green, they are sweet and soft) from ashram plants. The cream is seasoned with cardamon, lime, a tiny bit of o.j., then expanded and enriched with cream, from…you get my drift.>
mebtravelling 