Thanksgiving, akin to Pongal in spirit, meaning

CHENNAI: Thanksgiving is a celebration with family and friends - a time of abundance: the abundance of love, relationships, and gratitude. It is also a time to remember how the first European settlers of America, fleeing religious persecution, nearly starved during their first winter but were saved through the generosity and kindness of Native Americans, who taught them the skills they needed to survive in their new home.

I am the only ‘true’ American in my family. My children have American passports but have never lived in the US, and my husband is Irish, so they don’t really understand Thanksgiving or feel the same affinity for it that I do. The one thing I miss about celebrating Thanksgiving away from the US is having a great big Butterball turkey!

After living in India for 20 years, we’ve also embraced local traditions - the one festival we celebrate is Pongal. My husband has gone several times to watch Jallikattu and even tried to participate last year. In many ways, Pongal is very akin to Thanksgiving.

This year, I am planning to make a traditional Thanksgiving meal. We’ll celebrate with some American and Canadian friends. One has to be inventive to prepare a traditional meal in Chennai - we will try to source a turkey. Then it’s just a matter of making all the sides from scratch: mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potato casserole (a huge favourite) with pecans, pumpkin pie, and cranberry sauce. My all-time favourite Thanksgiving dessert is pecan pie with vanilla ice cream.

Celebrating Thanksgiving in India has taught me that the essence of the festival is universal. No matter where we are, people are people - if you look at them from the heart, most of us want the same things: dignity, respect, acceptance, and love. But from a dining perspective, the main cultural difference is that Westerners use utensils, whereas Indians tend to eat with their hands.

- As told to Merin James