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Having confirmed that the International Ponggal Festival was on 15th, I decided to attend it today. First time to Menara KL as well, so took the chance to go up the tower. More on that later.
I reached the tower at 9.45am , was at the observatory till 10.30am. It was blazing hot. By the way, parking is RM2.65 per hour, in case you wonder. The preparation for the festival was going on. The organisers were moving about – registering participants, arranging the pots and so on.
The function was organised by Putera MIC, under Mr Kamalanathan.
The crowd began to trickle in around 10.45am, mostly students (including foreigners) from local universities like UM and UNISEL. There were few families, and few tourists as well. I estimated that there were between 80 to 100 pots available, but about a quarter of them were not taken. The organizers asked those that had 4 people in a team to break up into two-per-team. Maybe being a weekday caused less participation.
The crowd was enthusiastic – most started the fire and poured the milk, until the organizer had to ask them to wait for the VIP. VIP was none other than MIC Chief Dato Seri Samy Vellu. He came in at around 11.15am .
There was a welcoming dance – a classical one – performed by malay dancers (as highlighted by the MC), followed by speech from Mr Kamalanathan.
This was followed by another dance. I can’t remember if Samy Vellu gave a speech, since I was busy snapping photos. I only heard Samy Vellu being invited to launch the festival by pouring milk in the pot – the first step in making “ponggal”.
Samy Vellu then went around and talked to the participants. The participants were quite jovial and some posed for photographs. The walkabout took around 15 minutes.
The participants were busy tending to their pots, hoping to be the first to have the milk boil and overspill. There were cries of “Ponggalo Ponggal” denoting that participants managed to get it right. The event went on till about 12pm, at which I left the venue.
Overall, it was good program, though it could have started a bit early to avoid the afternoon sun. I was expecting a larger crowd, so a bit surprised at the crowd. It also reminded me of the ponggal festival we used to organize while in university those days. Sigh….those were the days!
Photos are at Picasa.
