Elephants offered delicacies to mark Tamil Nadu harvest festival

Pollachi (TN), Jan 17 (ANI): Devotees on Saturday offered delicacies to elephants at a orest reserve in Tamil Nadu's Pollachi district to mark Pongal, the five-day long harvest festival.

Traditionally cows and goats are honoured during Pongal. They are bathed and their horns are painted.

But at Topslip, a tiger forest reserve, authorities have encouraged people to feed and came for the pachyderms.

Twenty-one elephants including six calves were fed with their favourite bananas, sugarcane and jaggery.

"We have seen Pongal celebration in houses, Pongal celebration for the holy cows but this celebration for elephants is really unique. We truly enjoyed this event and we expect such events to take place every year," said Susila, a tourist.

"We are very happy to see exclusive Pongal celebration for elephants in which all the elephants are made to stand in a circle and elephant's delicacies like jaggery, sugarcane, sweet Pongal are all offered to them. And moreover, we are also allowed to touch and play with the animals and it's realty amazing to see them," said Jawath Ahmad, another tourist.

Pongal in the south coincides with the Makar Sankrati, marking the northward journey of the sun as it enters a new zodiac. (ANI)