Of all Indian festivals Pongal is a favorite. To me it makes the most sense of all Indian festivities. It is the Indian equivalent of Thanksgiving (or at least the way I interpret it). This year, I had the chance to be in Chennai for Pongal.

Kuttyma and I spent time creating and decorating with kolams. It was her first attempt and I was quite pleased to see her keen on it. I have fond childhood memories related to kolams. Notebooks filled with designs faithfully copied from books and borrowed from friends, shopping for different colors all around the state, collecting the whitest sands you find during our beach vacations, dyeing sand, white base powder or salt and drying them, selecting the perfect design, making a flour paste so that the design stays for longer, lighting mosquito coils and dark hours spent decorating.

I was never good at it. I am too impatient for that. But it was a ritual I associate with my childhood. One of the few that stays. In college, I was part of the team that decorated halls with rangoli and flowers before classical events. Over the years, it become a memory.

It was beautiful to recreate it with my daughter. I realized my patience levels have waned over the years. I drew some shapes and colored them. I spoke to kuttyma about the significance of the festival. We spent sometime talking about the sun and the cows while attempting to eat sugarcane. We spoke food and scarcity. We spoke about Bhogi (which I interpret as a day of giving rather than burning). I hope she will remember this when we celebrate the festival in another corner of the world.

Kuttyma’s first rangolis