Last weekend, the Tamil Society Waikato hosted its Pongal celebrations with approximately 500 attendees and prepared a whopping 20 dishes for the community members on the festive occasion.
Pongal is one of the most important festivals for the Tamil community and in New Zealand is celebrated by several community organisations on different weekends of the first quarter of the year.
What made the celebrations memorable for the Tamil Society in Waikato is the number of people who travelled from different corners of north and south island to observe the community event.
And the hosts prepared 20 traditional dishes for over 500 crowds and simultaneously presented an array of cultural programs, games and activities for the visitors.
Held at Waikato Indian Association Hall in Frankton, Hamilton, the event started at 11 a.m. where visiting community members engaged in preparing traditional Pongal dishes serving amongst themselves.
“The official part of the event started at 11 with the attendees making special sweet rice, but the highlight of the event- 20 vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes were made by three chefs and a dedicated team of volunteers in the day preceding and early hours of Saturday,” Kamala Devi, secretary of Tamil Society Waikato told the Indian Weekender.
“Our three chefs, namely Khan, Bala and Prakash, worked till late night on Friday and started around 4 a.m. on Saturday, the day of the event to prepare the dishes for the visitors.”
The idea for ‘Pongal Kari Virunthu’, to make a score of different dishes was to bring some real essence of community cooking, especially during festivals like Pongal.
“It was like we were preparing for a wedding back at our home in Chennai, all volunteers got together arranging food items, washing dishes, cleaning the kitchen area, cutting vegetables, helping the chefs and making sure everything was in place as per chefs’ requirement.
“The volunteers were from our association as well as from the wider community who offered their hands for the annual mega event. The food was ready by 9:30 in the morning, at least an hour half before we commenced the event,” Kamala said.
Dressed in traditional Tamil festive wears, the attendees participated in games, folk dance performances, and traditional Pongal activities celebrating the joyous occasion.
Tamil Society Waikato was founded in 1989 to promote Tamil language, culture and literature. The organisations’ other objectives are to provide a forum for the younger generation of Tamil community to participate in literacy and cultural programs, organise social and entertainment events for the diaspora living in the region and provide a support base for newly arrived Tamil immigrants in the Waikato region.