Karthigai deepam
Deepavali is celebrated on an Amavasya day, whereas Karthigai deepam is celebrated on the Pournami (full moon) day of the Karthigai month (november-december). This usually falls just after Deepavali. In the Thirvannamalai Shiva temple, a very huge lamp is lit on the karthigia deepam day.
People light oil lamps (earthen lamps, Kuthuvilakku, pithallai akal etc). Down south it is a tradition to give new set of lamps for the newly married girl from mother’s house. Also similar to holi in North India, for karthigai deepam, sisters pray for brother’s welfare and brothers in turn give some gift to sisters.
And ofcourse none of the festival is complete without our home-made sweets. For Karthigai , Pori Undai and Appam are the important sweets.
Pori Undai is made from “Karthigai pori” and jaggery and made into balls.
I suddenly think what are names for these in English. Since I could not find much on the internet about these, I made my own definitions using my logic (similar to the counterparts corn flakes, pop corn etc):
Karthigai pori is puffed rice. This is crisp.
Normal white pori is popped from nellu (rice seed!). So it is nelpori. This is soft so difficult to make the sweet with jaggery.
And Aval is rice flakes.
You feel great when thinking about how all these festivals and celebrations have evolved. Imagine people have even thought of the health from ages before, because for each traditional festival, sweets and savouries are different and are good for health…!
To light your own decorated lamps visit Decorated Karthigai Akal
