Festival of God Sun and the solar eclipse
This is a harvest festival event celebrated by Tamils across the world. Ponghal in Tamil means "boiling/ spill over." The act of boiling over of milk in the clay pot is considered to denote future wishes for the family.
Thai Ponghal/ Makara Sankranti celebrates the resumption of the sun's 'journey northwards' where the days get longer. This celebration of Makara Sankranti/ Thai Pongal is not confined to the Tamils. It is a pan-Indic event and January 14 represents the climax of the Kumbh and Ardh Kumbh Mela. It is a traditional holiday in many regions such as Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bengal, Bihar, Gujarat, Karnataka, Kerala, Orissa, Maharashtra, Punjab, Rajasthan, TamilNadu, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh as well as in Nepal and Sri Lanka.
Especially in 2010, the day after Thai Ponghal is unique because of a natural phenomenon called as Solar Eclipse. A solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, thereby totally or partially obscuring Earth's view of the Sun. 15 of January eclipse is an annular solar eclipse that occurs when the Moon's apparent diameter is smaller than the Sun. As a result of this, the sun looks like a ring. An annular eclipse will appear as partial eclipse over a region thousands of kilometers wide.
It will be seen as annular (ring like Sun) within a narrow stretch of 300 km width across Central Africa, South India, Jaffna (North Sri Lanka) and parts of China. It will be visible as a partial eclipse in much of Africa, Middle East, Asia and some parts of Eastern Europe.
Although many superstitions on this natural phenomenon can be found in various cultures of the world, just on the day after Thai Ponghal (festival of God Sun), an annular solar eclipse to be seen over Jaffna peninsula (which was claimed as the home land of Tamils by terrorist leader Prabhakaran) is considered as unique.
