KLANG: It was a Ponggal celebration with a difference in Klang’s Little India when one of the stores there opted to go multicultural.
The retail outlet, located in Jalan Tengku Kelana, had two huge pots of boiling milk at its entrance and engaged an all- Indian lion dance troupe to help usher in the Tamil harvest festival.
According to retail store proprietor Selvan Govindasamy, the management decided to give the harvest celebrations a more Malaysian atmosphere because multiculturalism was the way forward for the country.
“Malaysia is a multicultural nation and that is why we decided to incorporate aspects of another culture into our Ponggal celebrations,’’ he said.
When Selvan heard about the all-Indian lion dance troupe, he was further convinced to have a celebration depicting Malaysia’s identity as a multi-cultural society.
“It was actually my son’s idea,” he noted.
“We also have many Chinese customers who buy our spices and we wanted to acknowledge them in our Ponggal celebrations this year.”
Selvan said it took seven litres of milk, 6kg of rice, 3kg of mung dhal, 800g of ghee, 5kg of jaggery, 1.5kg each of raisins and cashew nuts as well as 350g of cardamom to cook the ponggal rice at the store.
“When it was done, the ponggal rice was shared with all the other shops and staff there, as well as customers and passers- by,’’ he added.
