Hindus in Malaysia will celebrate Ponggal, an auspicious thanksgiving festival for a bountiful harvest, on Saturday.

Ponggal is celebrated in the 10th month of the Tamil calendar which is the harvest month.

The highlight of the celebration will be cooking rice from freshly harvested padi with milk and brown sugar in a new clay pot until it overflows, marking a symbol of another good harvest forthcoming.

The best time to boil the fresh milk over the pot would be at 7.30am.

MIC Youth secretary C Sivarajah said Malaysians living in a multiracial country should join and celebrate the event so that they can understand and get to know more about the festivals of a particular community.

“I believe that the concept and spirit of 1Malaysia will be more stronger if each of us do understand the importance of a festival celebrated in the country,” he said.

Tamil Youth Bell Club president K Murali said the club hoped such celebrations would help unite all the races.

“I believe this is a way for us to build up the 1Malaysia concept, not only in Malaysia but the world as a whole...we should be an example for them to show how united we are by understanding all the festivals in the country,” he said.

He also urged the younger generation to show more interest in celebrating traditional festivals as he observed that many of them are now not aware of their own festivals.

- Bernama