pongalo pongal!!

“Hey manju happy pongal”...a voiced boomed from the phone. The voice and all its excitement was so out of place for the genomics conference I was at, at San Diego. “Any plans? Pongal panna poriya?”
“Chance-e ila...enga intha hotel roomla ukarnthundu…”

It did not even strike me that it was pongal. I went back into the quiet conference room, to a bunch of people who would never understand an Indian festival even if explained twice. Atleast if I was at “home” meaning Carbondale, I would have tried to recreate the situation drawing a kolam (all geared up like I am going skiing in the alps) and made a sakara pongal, sans jaggery , elakkai and mundiri (well I guess I should rename it now) and finally end up having a pot luck dinner on a weekend some four days after pongal. Phew! There is no point trying to recreate the festive spirit here. Just doesn’t happen.
Sitting in the conference room, I decided to just recreate it in my mind. With me getting up at seven with utmost difficulty , to early morning madras heat, to a house smelling a mixture of karpooram and elakkai, to some random carnatic music played in the background(speaking of which even if I colud never understand its intricacies, I have grown to love the sound of carnatic music and associate comfort feeling with it after being in the U.S), to coffee being refused at the moment due of heavy cooking happening, maya selling karpoora valli for an exorbitant price just outside the house, and appa trying to put all his artistic skills together in getting the vengalapanai ready. Nothing is going to substitute THAT, is it? That would be followed by the poojai and sun tv “pongal sirapu nigalchigal” watching. The food followed by the nap is probably the best for me. Then a lazy round of visiting follows, to catch up on my cousins’ lives who would mostly be eating morning’s left over vadai soaked in rasam or thair. I would just happily join them. Such is a holiday in the recent times (it used be even better a few years before, in Coimbatore) for me .
Well instead of complaining/feeling bad for myself I just decided to do what I could at that moment. What could be better than 70F and bright sunshine for someone who is stuck in mid-west all of winter? So I just laid back, skipped the conference and enjoyed the Californian sunshine at torry point beach. It was almost as good as pongal!