On the first morning the panchangam is read out loud in the temple — what the rains will do, when to sow, which months are heavy, what the year is named.
It is not fortune-telling so much as a farming calendar said in public, at the one moment everybody is in the same place and listening.
At home the kanni is set the way Kerala sets it, the mangai-pachadi is made with all six tastes, and the year starts with the same honest arrangement: this will be sweet and sour and bitter, and here it is in a bowl.
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