Thursday 15th January 2026

It was an early morning start for Thai Pongal today. Thai Pongal is a traditional Tamil festival celebrated to mark the beginning of the harvest season, which is also the Tamil New Year. It's a time for people to express gratitude to the Sun God, the Earth, and the cattle that help with the harvest. The festival is also associated with the Tamil month of Thai, which is considered an auspicious time for new beginnings - like Daya's marriage to Vinothini.

This is the fourth year in a row that I have celebrated Thai Pongal with Daya's family, and it was another joyous occasion. The preparations start very early in the morning, so it's not a day for a lie in! It is a day to wear your vesti and a smart shirt. I have my own vesti now, which I bought for a wedding last year, so I didn't need to borrow one this year. By mid-morning, it's pretty much all over, and everyone gets changed back into more casual clothes.

This was a whole day of festivities, as we moved on from Thai Pongal in the morning to celebrating Daya's (33rd) and Rasi's (27th) birthdays (that were on Saturday 10th January), immediately followed by a Bachelor Party for Daya. To describe it simply as a fun time is an understatement and doesn't do it justice. You will see from today's photographs that it was a joyous occasion, and one that I felt very humbled, and yet proud to be a part of.

I feel very privileged to have had this time in my life to become so closely associated with the work of Tea Leaf Trust in Sri Lanka, but even more privileged to have become so closely involved with Daya and his family. I first became close to Daya on my first visit in 2019, and over the past 7 years I have become much closer to his brothers Ragu and Rasi too.

Today's photos show just a snapshot of the Thai Pongal celebrations, the birthday celebrations, and the very joyous Bachelor Party. I took a huge number of photos, but so did everyone else, which they then sent to me, so I spent a long time culling them, and even now you only have a small selection of them.













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