First, happy Pongal! May there be the right amount of rain and bountiful harvests for our farmers this year.
The eastern philosophy of perfection is quite different from that which prevails in the West. Here, a line may not be geometrically accurate to the degree. A sculpture of a human body may not be anatomically correct. What matters is the feeling it evokes, in the viewer and more importantly, in the one who creates.
From the drawing of the Kolam (rangoli) in freehand, to how the pongal is made, this philosophy predominates. The instructions and the recipe aren't exact. They're more like guidelines that let you come up with your own sense of aesthetic. And a pongal that's so unique, there's nothing else like it anywhere else in the world.
Here's to a perfect you, every day from today.
(This story was first published on 14 January 2017 and has been reposted from The Quint’s archives on the occasion of Pongal.)
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