Thai Pongal in mid January is a very important date in the Hindu calendar. It is a harvest festival devoted to the sun god Surya, where devotees boil the 1st. rice of the year outside their houses. “Thai” is the 10th. month of the Tamil calendar and “Pongal” is the rice - usually sweet in Sri Lanka - boiled with milk,lentils, raisins and cashews. Here our cook’s mother is tending the pot ready for the ceremony at our place in Ella,surrounded by the kolams (rice flour decorations.)