Tale of two villages.

Yesterday was the last sunday of tamil month Karthigai. In villages all over Tirunelveli, they pray to Vadakathiamman thanking her for protecting the village.

This Amman doesn't have a temple and resides under a neem tree in our village.

Early in the morning, villagers soak rice, pound it into rice flour and mix it with jaggery. This along with pearl onions, tamarind and jaggery is taken to the temple as offerings.

At the temple, little bit of flour from every offering is taken and made into a porridge/koozh. The tamarind is used to make paanagam, a refreshing drink.

Of course, every function needs nadhaswaram and thavil.

The nadhaswaram vidhwan saw me taking pictures and put on a lovely show. Also severe #bumstwitter performance by the thavil vidhwan.

Once the cooking is done, poojai starts.

After the poojai is done, the rice-jaggery mix is distributed along with paanagam. Sugarcane used to build the structure for Amman, lemon, onions, banana, garland etc used for poojai is also distributed.

Now we drink! Everyone sits done for koozh. Those who can't come, send vessels to get koozh delivered to their home.

After we collected our share, LM suddenly said she misses her village. Obviously I said let's go!

LM's village is called Anaithalaiyoor and is 10kms away.

Similar to our village, they dont have a temple for Vadakathiamman. A temporary structure is built opposite to their Mariamman temple.

Unlike our village, LM's village doesn't have communal living habits. Though they make one common koozh, families choose to make their own koozh in individual vessels.

But, they allow women to trance dance which is severely frowned upon in my village.

Once the poojai is over, koozh from common pot is distributed to those who didn't cook their own.

As usual ending the thread with selfies. My LM's LM decided to peep into camera; so cute!! Fin!