The celebration of Onam
By: K S S Pillai
Onam, the harvest festival of Kerala, has just bid farewell. The monsoon season, with dark clouds of various shapes rushing across the sky, has also disappeared for a few days, giving way to days of sunshine that accompany the Malayalam New Year starting with its ‘golden’ Chingam month.
In the past, coconut toddy was the only liquor available in Kerala. Men, covering their heads with a towel to hide their identity, visited the toddy shops clandestinely to have a few drinks along with the tasty non-vegetarian fares available there. Different brands of liquor are available now from the outlets of the state-run Beverages Corporation.
Long queues of men and even women waiting patiently before the outlets are regular sights. The media are full of photographs of unstable people crawling on the ground after consuming large quantities of liquor.
The government is happy that the sale has exceeded that of previous years, filling its coffers with badly needed funds after distributing free Onam kits containing all essential items for preparing a feast for most people.
All Keralites celebrate the festival for ten days, beginning with the ‘Atham’ star. Girls and women make a ‘rangoli’ of petals of different flowers called Pookalam in front of their homes. Swings would be tied on trees, and women and children would swing on them, singing Onam songs.
The festival has a mythical origin, where the Devas, jealous of the popularity of the Asura King of Kerala called Mahabali, seek the help of Lord Vishnu to banish him to the underworld. Vishnu obliges them after granting the king his wish of visiting his subjects once a year, which is celebrated as Onam, showing how happy and contented they were during his reign. Although the festival has a Hindu legend as the basis, it is celebrated by most people belonging to different religions, making it a state festival.
It is now celebrated enthusiastically at all places outside the state, where Malayalees are settled. Sports and other competitions are held beforehand, and the winners are given certificates and prizes on the day of the celebration. Many other cultural activities are also held on that day, and people actively participate in them.
The celebration has undergone some changes over the years. People now prefer to buy chips of different types fried in coconut oil from bakeries instead of toiling at home. Even the Onam feast is ordered from hotels that deliver them to homes and serve them in the traditional style.
Onam used to be celebrated differently during my childhood. They were the days without devices like refrigerators and electric grinders. The womenfolk would start preparing dishes for the Onam feast days before its arrival and store several items in different types of jars to be taken out only on the Onam day.
We were all given new dresses on the occasion, and tailors used to be very busy. After bathing in the nearby river or pond, we would visit the Shiva temple, draped in a wet towel and smearing our forehead with sandal paste, before going home. Schools would conduct Onam examinations before they close for the long holidays. Those who worked in distant states or outside the country would make it a point to be at home during the festival.
On the day of Onam there would be Pulikali, one of the children acting as a tiger, covering his entire body with a particular grass and visiting all houses with his friends. Everybody would be anxious to know the identity of the ‘tiger’, but it would be kept a secret till the end. People would give a liberal quantity of chips made in coconut oil to the children.
Women used to play Thiruvathira around a lighted bronze ‘diya’, and men would play cards, the losers ‘decorating’ their ears with flowers.
(The author is a retired professor of English. A regular contributor to ‘The Kashmir Vision’, his articles and short stories have appeared in various national and international publications)
KV News
