Tamils celebrate pongal festival around the world. Tamils are very much
close to their culture and traditions so even if they are living abroad
they do not forget their mother tongue and their cultural values and
through this significant festival they try to showcase their rich
culture and values to the world. The younger generation of Tamils living
abroad always comes forward to contribute to the development of this
Harvest festival. Through various contributions in celebrating Pongal,
the Tamil diaspora maintains and nurtures the cultural distinctiveness.
Today, Pongal has become a vibrant and important festival with a global
presence. The dispersal of Tamils around the globe is not of recent
origin A togetherness is tried to be rooted in the Tamil diaspora by
celebrating the Pongal festival at a single place, where everyone
performs the Pongal rituals and share their sweet memories of India. The
early settlement patterns of the Tamils could be traced to the sugar
cane plantations of Mauritius, Reunion in the Indian Ocean; Jamaica,
Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean; Guyana and Suriname in South
America; plantations in South Africa; Malaysia; Ceylon (Sri Lanka); and
to coal mines of New Caledonia off Australia. In Indonesia and Thailand.
Britain with 300,000 or more, the USA with well over 300,000, Canada
with over 300,000 and Australia with over 30,000 are some of the
developed countries where the Tamil diaspora is well settled, having
gone on voluntary migration from Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka. The various
places around the world where Pongal is celebrated are as follows:
Pongal in South East Asia : Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia,
Myanmar and others.
Pongal in Africa : Mauritius, Reunion, Seychelles And South
Africa.
Pongal in Oceania: Australia, New Zealand, Fiji.
Pongal in the Gulf: Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia And
Kuwait.
Pongal in Europe: Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland,
Denmark
Tamils in Americas: USA and Canada.
