Thai Pongal is an important day in Tamil culture and tradition, and indeed a gesture to thank nature and celebrate the life cycles that give us grain. Hence, Mount Lavinia Hotel has made plans to celebrate this festival quintessentially with a fabulous spread and the traditions observed for this time of giving thanks on the 14 of Jan at the Governor&#39;s Restaurant. <br /> <br /> <img align="right" alt="" height="237" src="http://www.dailymirror.lk/images/Page-1ff.jpg" width="348" />This festival is the equivalent of Canada&#39;s Thanksgiving Day. Pongal is a four-day-long harvest festival celebrated by Tamils living all around the world. <br /> &#39;By celebrating this festival we help to publicize the rich culture, traditions, and much aspiration, of our own kith and kin. It also indeed gives them an emotional link as for the first time in two decades they are celebrating Pongal in an atmosphere of relative peace,&#39; states Anura Dewapaura, General Manager of Mount Lavinia Hotel, who is spearheading a major change, making unity as the way forward as the silverlining.<br /> <br /> It is a joyous and happy occasion when the poor, the rich, the farmer, the villager all celebrate the harvest festival together irrespective of their individual faith. Celebrations include drawing of Kolam, swinging and cooking of delicious Pongal.<br /> <br /> Pongal refers to rice cooked in milk and sweetened with jaggery. Therefore the Mount Lavinia Hotel will serve typical savory pongal, it can be eaten as it is or one can have it with varieties like sambar/rasam and/or coconut chutney and other dishes like payasam and many others that are synonymous with Pongal celebrations.<br /> <br /></p>