V.I.P for me at the Pongal Festival

I wasn't looking forward to my first weekend all alone , so when I was in the tourist office the other day I picked up a paper on a Pongal festival venue not far from here.The  pongal is the equivelant of our thanksgiving time.

Anita called and found out about it so I decided to go on my own. I am beginning to feel a little less uneasy as I know Anita is always at the end of the phone , infact she is worse than me !

So Kumar picked me up at 8.45 , 20 mins later we were there, buses and people teeming everywhere which really made me want to about turn and go the other way.

As soon as I stepped out the auto there were people swarming round me and instantly thought u ooooh this is a mistake, when a lady approached me knew who was expecting me and before you knew it this is how I looked 

Can you see the elephant behind !! Damn thing had it's trunk wrapped around me and I had to stand still while it blessed me !

So once the elephant has blessed me they then swirl some sort of burning oil around you , now at this point as you can tell from the face I was worried as I thought they had the wrong person because I had no idea anyone was expecting me  but the woman Anita spoke to to find out about the festival had been waiting for me, Anita must have told her I was on my own,mind you to be fair I wasn't too difficult to spot  , I was the only white face for a couple of hours until 4 more appeared .

Anyway armed with garland and v.i.p. card  round my neck I was ushered into what turned out to be a college yard and I later found out that it was the students who were stationed at different displays and speaking you through Indian harvesting through the ages.

Well with the booming music over the speakers and the broken English I hardly understood a word but nodded and shook my head where I thought it was appropriate .

Grinding 

The students were so polite and very interested in Scottish culture so whipped out the I pad and showed  them some Scottish countryside.

The cows are decorated and are sacred because they provide milk and pull the plough.

And these are the cock fighters , this is meant to be banned but they got a special licence for the day.

Awful but what could I do or say !the same applied to the goat fighting which I really didn't want to witness but by this stage I had been ushered onto a podium and given my seat.

The sound of the crunching of horns was retry horrid ,but the worst injury I saw was the forehead bashed and bleeding abit. I tell you I was glad I wasn't standing on the side lines as one poor thing tried to make its escape into the crowd, which they all thought was hilarious .

Here is the bull waiting it's turn for the bull fight , they don't spear it though brave young bucks try to bring the bull down with their bare hands . Injuries occur so I was making sure that. Was nowhere near when that took place.

And me feeling distinctly uneasy about the proceedings !

So to make it all Better they gave me this little plate of delights 

If you want to loose your teeth then eat these, all horrible infact and washed down with a nice cup of sugar cane juice hhmmmm.

Sugar cane juice In The making

but I am not complaining because it gave me a flavour of what local life is all about .

 It really was very noisy roasting hot with no shade and I was beginning to flag a bit. The speakers were up at full capacity chuntering out , well you can imagine the type of music can't you. 

The youngsters then led me towards the "rides " they seemed to think I would be very excited to have a go in this

"You vill like it you vill like it "they kept saying and I didn't have the heart to say" no I vill not "so I dutifully clambered in for that's what you had to do . Honestly even I couldn't sit up straight , so we trundled round that wee square twice..oh dear oh dear. I declined the ox cart ride.

One more picture of food that I was desperate to try but didn't dare just incase !

I think they are called paneearum made with rice flour brown sugar and spices. I don't suppose I would have come to much harm but it was too hot to eat. Everything they cook is deep fried, I kind of wonder why when there is so much fresh produce available.

I was ushered back to my seat on the podium to watch the dancers so are a few , I think it's basically the men giving thanks for the harvest followed by the women.

The finally of the day is the cooking of the rice in the pot and allowing it to flow over, so again I was herded to the area and asked to crouch down and stir the pot space was made for the paparazzi and I was snapped left right and centre saying no just didn't seem to be an option ... If that's what celebrity is like then it's not for me.

The other problem about this part of the story is that I had snapped so much myself that the memory card was full , Graeme tells me the photos are there somewhere but unfortunately they will have to wait  .by this time I had had enough but they wanted me there the whole day. Anita and Lakschman had come to see how I was and ended up coming away with them in their air conditioned car which was a huge relief.

On the way out there was a fortune teller, he had a small green parrot that was instructed to choose a card which the wee man then read 

It pulled out a Christian card with Jesus on it , and he told in his words " I would be fine I would get some ailments but not serious ones "

So that ended my day at the festival.