Visakhapatnam: Village celebrates early Pongal festival

Visakhapatnam: Unlike the rest of Andhra Pradesh, a village in Vizianagaram district celebrated Pongal on Monday. At Itakarlapalli village of Cheepurupalle mandal every year, the festive celebrations begin on the Sunday before Pongal. This year, residents of the village celebrated the festive a week ahead. Kanuma will be celebrated on Tuesday.

The villagers, however, decided not to celebrate the festival of Bhogi because of an accident that occurred some decades ago. According to locals, a cat was killed in the Bhogi fire several years back. With this, they have decided not to set fire during the festival. This year also, Pongal celebrations started on Sunday without setting up the Bhogi fire. The festive atmosphere was spread across the village with relatives and friends of the villagers coming from other cities as well.

Another interesting thing in this village is that families of Meesala community are going to celebrate Pongal on Tuesday. Another set of families observe the festival four days after the actual date of celebrations all over the state. Asked about the reason for this tradition, no one from the village could give an exact answer. But, they follow the practice as it is considered impious to break the age-old practices.