The Colors of Pongal Celebration from KL Tower @ Chennai City Centre

CHENNAI, 15th January 2008. PuteraMIC Chennai (Malaysian Student Council) has organized the Colors of Pongal Celebration from KL Tower at the Chennai City Centre which is a replica celebration from the KL Tower.

It is time for the harvest festival for fellow Indians and they gleefully celebrated with the Malaysians of multiracial and the public at the Chennai City Centre. This celebration was officially launched by the Vice Consul/Acting Consul General of Malaysia, Ms. Wan Naimah Wan Daud by lighting up the oil lamp and followed by boiling of the rice. This celebration is mainly conducted as a thanksgiving ceremony to the show gratitude to the hardworking harvesters and the soil that aids in the production of rice.

The boiling of the rice was started by all the ladies and students of different races where they setup the pot and waited around till the whole process completed. While waiting for the rice to be cooked, The celebration is carried on with activities such as Pongal Setup & Kolam Competition participated by Malaysian Students from various colleges in Chennai / South India to show their creativity of their setup in different ways such as Pongal year 2020, Pongal Muhibah ‘Multiracial’ and various more.

This event was continued with the Best Dressed Kid section for the day where we had 12 kids participated in this competition which consist a dressing of traditional and modern attire. During this celebration, they distributed ketupat which is a Malaysian culture with a ladoo inside to the public to mainly promote the Malaysian Culture to the Indians. At the end of the event, the pongal was distributed to everyone around.

‘This celebration was mainly organized to celebrate pongal with the public and different races as Malaysia being a Multiracial country and this year’s celebration was themed “Preserving Unity through Traditional values” as well as to promote our Culture and Tradition to the Indians’ said E.Venkates Rao, Chief of PuteraMIC Chennai / South India.

This was indeed a wonderful event where the public had an opportunity to see how Malaysians celebrate their festivals with different races together, this shows how Malaysians do accept other cultures as well. This event was attended by all the Malaysian Government Officials in Chennai such as,. Trade Commissioner, Tourism Director, MASI President, Vice Consul of Immigration and all Malaysian families & students in Chennai / South India.