First Floor Reading Room

Saugus Public Library

October through November, 2024

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Pongala is a harvest festival of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. The name ‘Pongala’ means ‘to boil over’ and refers to the ritualistic offering of porridge made of rice, sweet brown molasses, coconut gratings, nuts and raisins. Generally women devotees participate in this ritual.

Susan Oleksiw has been visiting India and photographing its people and their festivals since 1976. She focuses here on the ninth day of the annual ten-day Pongala festival held in Trivandrum, Kerala, South India. Considered the largest gathering of women in the world, in some years up to two and a half million women converge on the city, Pongala is open to all devotees of any faith, though it is primarily Hindu.

Oleksiw’s photographs have appeared in a number of exhibits and in juried shows in the North Shore area. From 2012 to the present Oleksiw has been a co-director of the Matz Gallery, part of the Sawyer Free Library, Gloucester MA, responsible for curating ten exhibits each year.

A (nearly) lifelong New Englander, Oleksiw is also a writer who sets a series of mystery novels in South India, as well as parts of Massachusetts. She received a PhD in South Asian studies from the University of Pennsylvania. Find her at https://susanoleksiw.com