The Tamil Hindu festival of Pongal is an agricultural festival, which marks the completion of a good rice harvest. The festival of Pongal also denotes the beginning of the Tamil month of "Thai", which falls in either January or February of the year, where the month of "Thai" is held to be the luckiest month of the year. Thus, it is widely known as "Tamil Thai Pongal" or the "Festival of the Tamils".

The Tamil festival of Thai Pongal is a thanks giving ceremony in which the farmers celebrate the event to thank the spirits of nature spirit, the Sun and the farm animals for their assistance in providing a successful harvest. Love and peace are the central themes of Thai Pongal, which celebrates family re-unions and get-together. It is a festival that encourages social cohesiveness and unity by bringing people together in a common function, where old enmities, personal animosities and rivalries are forgotten. Thus, Thai Pongal is essentially a festival of freedom, peace, unity and compassion.

This year, the Tamil Department extended its invitation to the lower primary pupils and the international pupils in witnessing the cooking of Sweet Pongal. The pupils came in during their recess break and had lots of fun, shouting out in glee Pongal wishes. They also left the celebrations on a sweet note, as they got to taste the sweet sumptuous Pongal delicacy.