Observed on the day before Thai Pongal, Parchu Bhogi is an ancestral ritual celebrated to honour the dead.

The Melaka Chetti are descendants of Indian traders from Tamil Nadu’s Coromandel Coast, who first set foot here in the 15th century and married local women. Their mother tongue is Malay.

Speaking with FMT Lifestyle, resident K Vimala Devi Rajah explained why the community continues to practise their traditions the old-fashioned way.

“The youths are with us less often these days, so this is a way to educate them, to say ‘your ancestors came from this part of India and this is what they practised’,” the 56-year-old said.

“When we’re preparing for Parchu Boghi, we invite them to come back, and we come together and train them in these traditions.”

Indeed, the celebration usually involves family gatherings and a reunion over food. The community’s preparations actually begin a month earlier, at the start of what they call “bulan berbunga”.

“We get up early, bathe ourselves, open our doors, and decorate the house with flowers. We then go for prayers and ask for blessings from God,” Vimala said.

“During this month, we believe the ancestors are at their ‘weakest’ because, as we say, ‘pintu syurga buka’ (the gates of heaven are open) and they will come and visit our homes.”

Then, a week before Parchu Bhogi, the 30 families who live in Kampung Chetti sweep the tombs of ancestors in an act of respect reminiscent of the Qingming festival celebrated by the Chinese community.

And on Parchu Bhogi itself, in the evening, 21 dishes once enjoyed by the community’s forefathers and -mothers are prepared and laid out on banana leaves on the floors of the families’ living rooms.

Five or seven leaves are usually arranged, accompanied by objects such as candles, black coffee, cigarettes, tea, pineapples, sweets, and betel leaves, which are offered to the ancestors in prayer. This is done in complete silence.

When it comes to the food, the key component here is nasi lemak kukus. The dishes are placed in anti-clockwise order on the banana leaves – rice before vegetables, meats and fish.

These side dishes include kuih kanda kasturi, sambal belacan, long beans, cucumber with coconut sambal, herring roe with starfruit sambal, cucumber with chilli and vinegar, spiced cabbage, and fried mutton.

Fellow resident Thevi Pitchakaran shared a little open secret about the food ritual during Parchu Bhogi: “We can’t taste the food we are preparing, whether it has enough salt or not. We cannot try it because the malaikat yang meninggal (the spirits of our ancestors) are around.

“We have to cook agak-agak. So we don’t add too much salt when we are cooking. If it’s not enough, we can add some later on, once we start eating,” said the 67-year-old, who moved to Kampung Chetti with her family in 1970.

Prayers are then offered, and the ancestors are invited to partake in the offering. After some time, a coin is flipped to ensure the ancestors have stopped eating, before the family sits down to enjoy the food together.

For the Melaka Chetti, this revered ritual ties them to their past, and they continue to observe it to ensure it will live on in the future.

“We want our generation and the next generation to know their roots,” Vimala concluded, “to ask and remember, ‘where are you from?’”