Mylapore woke up on January 15, on a day was still a tad chilly, with mist hanging around places with many trees and the quiet of a holiday week easy to appreciate.
The festival of Pongal began on a quiet note.
In inner streets, as in Trustpakkam and in Mandavelipakkam, and off Royapettah High Road, women were busy drawing large, coloured kolams outside their residences. Scenes which have been rare this margazhi season.
While many families undertook the rituals of cooking rice in earthen pots inside their houses and apartments, in some places, families did this in the open front yards.
The Murali family in Chidambaraswamy Street and the Venmani family in the same street ( located off V P Koil Street / R H Road, Mylapore) carried on with the Pongal tradition of cooking in the open – doing this in the quiet street this morning.
In the Mada Streets, priests and volunteers took out the gods from Sri Kapali Temple, in a small procession to mark the festival.
Hawkers in South Mada Street and in Mandaveli catered to last-minute shopping of residents who were looking for sugarcane and thoranams.
Also this morning, nuns and church goers gathered in the campus of St Thomas Cathedral in San Thome, after the daily Mass, to cook a pot of rice/pongal in a space decorated with thoranams and sugarcane, and distributed pongal to people here.
Other churches in the zone celebrated Pongal the traditional way and symbolically, as they have done in recent years.
