Missing Onam

This is my fourth year that I am staying away from home during “Onam” the biggest (consumer) festival in the mallu land (We are expected to bust 5 crores of rupees this year!!!) What i miss about Onam is the opportunity to be with one’s relatives and friends, relaxing, engaging in various pastimes and eating well.

The Onam holidays we used to have back home used to be great. Visiting, friends and family, engaging in games and in pure gluttony almost the entire week, munching on homemade banana chips and getting satiated with the tastiest of “payasams” that amma makes, bullying my sister every 10 minutes, watching loads of movies on TV, plucking flowers for the athappookkalam (floral decoration) from the neighbours houses and cheering for those ‘pulikkali’ artists who visit home dressed in colourful costumes.. are all memories that just resist to fade out.

Onam is not part of people of one religious identity. It is part of all those Malayalees who have been celebrating it from their childhood days. It is a tradition that has etched itself into the culture and identity of the Malayalee community. There might be strong contention that it is all just based on the Myth of the Asura king Mahabali, during whose reign there was total equality and people lived happily. The Gods played spoilsport there by approaching lord Vishnu to find a “solution”. Vishnu took the avatar of Vamana – a Brahmin boy and asked for three feet of land to meditate. Mahabali, being a philanthropic, readily agreed and asked Vamana to measure it by himself and take the land. The myth goes on to say that Vamana grew into a giant sort of person and measured the whole of the earth in one feet and the whole of the skies in the second. He didn’t have any place left to measure the third feet. Having given his word, Mahabali had no other option but to show his head to be measured.

Before sending Mahabali to hell, Vamana granted Mahabali’s wish to visit his people and his Kingdom once every year. We celebrate this day as Onam, where we try to recreate those good old times under Mahabali’s reign.

Every home will have good food and will have a beautiful floral decoration in front of it welcoming Mahabali. The children, women and men will engage in various pastimes ranging from games to dances to street theatre. The famous snake-boat races happen during the month in which Onam falls. Everyone is in a festive mood. The government, the media and even the church celebrates it with much fanfare.

For me, I just loved being at home with my family and friends. I miss Onam, I miss my family.