ONAM - Festival of Joy

ONAM – This year, on 23 August, Kerala’s most important annual festival was once again celebrated with great joy. This took place over a period of 10 days here as well as everywhere else in the world, where there are Malayalees. It is the equivalent of our Harvest Festival and marks the homecoming of the legendary King Mahabali. On Thiruvonam (the main Onam day), King Mahabali is believed to visit every Malayali home and meet his people.
I suggest that anybody, who likes to know more about all this logs into Wikipedia, it certainly is worth it.
Most houses and offices will have their “Pookalam” (Flower carpet). Days before the festival season begins certain streets and markets are lined with flower sellers and we choose the colours and buy the blossoms by weight. Each family will have their own design and competitions are being held in most of the offices and Government institutions for the best and most intricate Pookalam. The making of a Pookalam is often accompanied with the joyful singing of traditional songs (and no, sadly I do not speak Malayalam – so therefore I can only hum along with certain tunes).

Unfortunately this year we were not able to celebrate Onam as usual since I was not too well, but I did manage to drive into the city centre to briefly catch up with some foreign visitors and to photograph Sebastian, the splendid doorman of the famous “Grand Hotel” on MG Road, who every year gets dressed up as King Mahabali and on that day greeted every guest with his sonoric “Namaskaram/Namaste” and his offering of the traditional sweets from a basket. It was so much fun you should have seen the queue of guests lining up to have their pictures taken with “King Mahabali”.
(Pic: Sebastian a.k. “King Mahabali” of Grand Hotel, Ernakulam)

The feast, the traditional meal enjoyed by nearly everybody on Thiruvonam (the main Onam day, this year on 23 August) is known as “Onam Sadya” and I, like so many of the guests visiting this famous Hotel, had previously ordered my “Onam Sadya” including the Kerala plates (to you known as banana leaves) to take back home with me. My husband and I had a quiet but nevertheless enjoyable celebration of this all so important festival in Kerala’s calendar and we so do look forward to 2011.
By the way, Onam is the time when many of the girls and ladies like to wear their special Saree, unique to our state – known as the Onam Saree (handloom material with gold designs and border) and their hair is adorned with sweet smelling Jasmine blooms. A wonderful site to be seen and the heady scent of all those Jasmine blossoms can leave you slightly dizzy.