Puthandu
14 April 2026 · movable holiday — A new year, a new kolam at the door – happy Puthandu!
Puthandu is the Tamil New Year. It falls on the first day of the Tamil month of Chithirai, usually around 14 April. The date follows a solar calendar: it coincides with the Sun's entry into the zodiac sign of Aries as reckoned in Indian sidereal astronomy (measured against the fixed stars). The festival is celebrated in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry, and by Tamil communities in Sri Lanka, Singapore and Malaysia. Early in the morning homes are cleaned, and a kolam, a pattern drawn with rice flour, often built around a grid of dots, is made at the doorstep. On the table there is mango pachadi, a dish combining sweet, sour, bitter, salty, spicy and astringent tastes, a reminder that the new year brings many flavours of life. People wear new clothes, visit temples and exchange greetings. Reading the panchangam, the traditional almanac, for the coming year is also customary. In this way an earthly pattern of dots and lines meets the sky, the Sun's path among the stars.
Flying across the sky: An ethereal, bluish-silver star figure made of bright dots and fine lines, like a constellation, slowly drawing a looping kolam pattern across the night sky
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