Girls get a taste of traditional food, games

The event was organised by Historical Forum of Nadar Middle School as a part of International Women’s Day celebrations. In the event, elderly women from the same locality were roped in to teach girl students of the school the importance of tradition. The women taught traditional games of Tamil Nadu such as ‘Pallanguzhi’, ‘Thattangal’ and ‘Pandi’ to the girls. For practise, the girls were made to play the games as the elderly women corrected their mistakes. 

Similarly, traditional cooking methods were also shared with the students. They were taught how to separate rice and husk from paddy using traditional hand pounding method, to remove the skin of black gram and green gram by grinding in the hands and to separate stones in the pulses and rice using “muram” or “sulagu”. Later, the students were given traditional snacks made using sesame seeds and flour made by grinding multiple food grains. 

After the event, the students too said that they were completely unaware of such practices and would insist their parents to buy grinding stones to so that they can keep the tradition alive. They also pledged to avoid packaged and junk food. 

Speaking about the event, one of the organisers, Muthumurugan said, “Events such as these will help in bridging the gap between modernism and tradition and bring young women closer to their roots.”