The City of Joy celebrates Pongal

A grand celebration of Pongal festival was organised by Bharathi Tamil Sangham along with South Indians Associations of Bengal at National High School. The Governer of West Bengal, Jagdeep Dhankhar, graced the occasion as Chief Guest of the event. Also present on the occasion were A Shanmugasundaram, General Counsel, ITC Limited, Kolkata; Captain R Narasimhan, COO, Apeejay Shipping Limited, Kolkata; Ashoke Viswanathan, Dean, SRFTI and National Award Winner; V S Gururajan, General Manager, IMC Ltd. and P Venkatesa Perumal, General Manager, Indian Bank.

Several programmes were rendered by different associations of Kolkata including folk dances from North East region, devotional songs, skits, dance drama.

"Pongal denotes the beginning of the sun's six–month long voyage northwards. The festival is fundamentally celebrated to express appreciation to the Sun God for an efficacious harvest. The origins of the festival of Pongal might date to more than 1,000 years ago. A portion of the celebration is the sweltering of the first rice of the season. Pongal is also the name of a sweetened dish of rice boiled with lentils, which is prescriptively consumed on the festival day. This is the 15th year celebration in the city of joy and we hope to continue it as many years to come," said S Mahalingam, Special Advisor, Bharathi Tamil Sangham.