In Karachi, a touch of south India

[KingCobra]

Karachi



Shahrukh Khan’s famous song “Lungi Dance” found another expression in Karachi on Friday when Madrasi children swayed to its tune celebrating Thai Pongal – the Madrasi community’s biggest annual celebration.



Celebrated in parts of Sri Lanka and across southern India to mark the end of harvest season, the three-day festival is quintessentially a Tamil event. Thai refers to the name of the 10th month in the Tamil calendar while Pongal means “overflowing”, which signifies abundance and prosperity. Thai Pongal is mainly celebrated to appreciate and thank the sun for acting as the primary energy behind agriculture and good harvest.



“This is as good as our eid,” says an old man from the community, as he watches young boys and girls frolicking in the narrow lanes of the Madrasi compound behind Jinnah Post Graduate Medical Centre (JPMC). “We celebrate this festival every year but on a small scale, as the community is not that big.”



With less than a hundred households in Karachi, the Madrasis are one of the smallest communities living in the city since before the Partition. The community elders have a brief narrative of the Madrasi Hindus residing in Karachi: around 30 to 40 Madrasi families were living here in the British era. They had jobs or businesses that they did not want to relinquish after the Partition. “That’s pretty much our family tree,” says 50-year-old Swami Ram.



On Friday, the third and final day of the festival began with pooja at sunrise. Boys and girls preen up for the occasion to visit the temple for prayers. Later, they gang up to sing high-pitched songs and dance with dandiya, as they move from household to household asking tips from elders.



One of the exclusive rituals of the festival is “kolam” where the thresholds of the houses are painted with different colours. At the Madrasi compound, a number of families had painted their doorsteps, competing for compliments from neighbours. “It’s a delicate art, which I must admit, is fading with time. It’s the women of our mothers’ age [group] who can paint so beautifully,” says 25-year-old Ajay Jagarnath.



Like any other major cultural festival, the Madrasis too go on a shopping spree before Thai Pongal. “I made three dresses this year,” boasts Laxmi, a seven-year-old girl excitedly dancing to a non-stop medley of famous Tamil and Bollywood songs.



Although small in numbers, the Tamil community in Karachi is extremely proud of its culture and heritage. With icons like AR Rahman, Prabhu Deva and Rajnikanth, the community has no dearth of heroes to celebrate. And the recent trend in Bollywood of remaking south Indian movies with all their dramatic action, lends the Madrasis of Karachi more reasons to boast about their art and language.



“If you look at Bollywood today, it’s actually doing superb business while copying south Indian movies. It’s a fact,” says Ali Mutto, who claims to be a choreographer.



It’s hard to disagree. As some of the highest earning Bollywood movies in recent years were indeed remakes of south Indian films. Movies like Singham, Ghajini and Wanted were catually all remakes of super-hit south Indian movies.



The celebration of Pongal, meanwhile, continues till the evening, when after making lunch the community’s women dress up in saris to visit friends and relatives. Apart from the Madrasi compound, these families also live at Drigh Road and Korangi crossing in Karachi. But those families also come to the JPMC compound for the occasion, as the area has the most number of Madrasi families.