Onam 2009

Today, Keralites or Malayalees across the world celebrate Onam, the harvest festival of Kerala. Though modernity has touched Onam, it is celebrated with vigor for four to ten days.

Cultural programmes are a part of Onam and you can find them across Kerala as well as in other cities across India and other countries where Malayalees live. Several years ago, probably Pookalam (florarl carpet) used to adorn every home but now only a handful sticks on this tradition. Onasadhya is a main attraction – however, unlike the olden days, many prefer to give “order” of onasadhya ‘parcel’ to a catering team! Reasons vary - rising prices, the difficulty in preparing over a dozen items for two or three members, keeping up with the times and one’s status symbol (with “I don’t know to cook traditional dishes!”) and more. Children are excited because of their “10 days” break from school during this season and they get new clothes.

Joint families, almost and fast on the decline, witnesses gets together of family members during Onam. Spending the entire ten days together is a distant dream for most people; but many gather at their family house at least on the day of Thiruvonam.

Malayalam television channels make use of this opportunity to compete with each other and come out with the “for the first time in a channel” films. This year, Asianet outdo other channels with eleven new (ie., not shown earlier in small screen) films.

Notable and unfortunate trend is the rise in alcohol takers during Onam season. Alcohol sales in Kerala on August 31st touched a whooping record of sales - Rs.34.13 crore, in a single day. According to media reports, this is 49 percent more than what was sold on the first day of Onam festival in 2008. Whatever happens, it seems people find it hard to live without alcohol!

And forget traveling to the city, especially if you live in Kochi – the streets are full and last day, a television channel reported over 5000 additional cars tried to make its way to Kochi for shopping. The result – road blocks and most had to return home, in the neighboring districts without shopping. It seems they had to wait for hours to move less than a kilometer! Strange – but that’s Kochi and I dread moving to the city. However, yesterday was more peaceful and less-crowded, as my husband covered 18 kilometers, to reach the city in less than 40 minutes! Fearing the last day’s experience, people had probably preferred to shop elsewhere to drop their shopping plans.

Reminiscing Onam

I had as a child heard about the Onam celebrations between 1930’s and 1970’s from my maternal grandmother and my mother. They used to pick flowers from around their house and engage in pookalam (making flower carpet), every day for ten days. Swings were a part of Onam, so was dance like Thiruvathirakalli. As a child, when we traveled between Thiruvananthapuram (where I lived for 23 years) and Ernakulam (my hometown) during Onam, I used to excitedly look for the pookalams in front of each house. With each year, the number of pookalams decreased in number. During our travel, we also used to come across Pullikali.

Onam was one of the four-five “Sadhya” (feast) we had every year. We never believed in buying new clothes, just because it’s Onam or any other festive occasion. During my teen years, my family and I used to travel to places like Munnar, Kodaikanal, Ooty, Bangalore and Mysore for 4-7 days holiday. These were the only days when we all could spare time. In late 1990’s, we realized we aren’t alone and several other families prefer to ‘holiday’ during Onam. Since last few years, Onam means watching new movies in the television!

Let’s wait and watch how Onam is going to evolve in the coming years.