How should I celebrate? Home sweet home! Where, every year we use to celebrate by searching for flowers, putting ona-pookalam (flower carpet) and having ona-sadya (lunch) with payasam (desert). But today, I stay 1500 km (932 miles) away from home, my brother stay 3840 km (2386 miles) away and my sister got married and she is with her in-laws. Thanks to telephone, we all wished each other in the morning itself; though it's not the same.
Onam is a harvest festival in Kerala (India). It's celebrated in the memory of Great King Mahabali. It's believed that everyone was happy in his days as King and there was no theft and nobody cheats. And today is the day he visits us. To show him, we are all doing fine here as in his time (even though it's quite the opposite now), we decorates our house, add an ona-pookalam (flower carpet) to our porch or the front yard and have an ona-sadya (lunch with 5 different curries, some people make up to 24 curries; all vegetarian). It's said that no one should go hungry today in Kerala. There is a saying; you should sell what ever you have, even in penury, to have food in Onam.
Here in Mumbai (where I stay now) ona-sadya is available for Rs. 140 and same is the case in Kerala. Is it because we are westernizing our culture or is it because people became laze to prepare all those, I really don't know. May be both! To me, ona-sadya starts with helping mother in the kitchen, cutting and cleaning of plantain/banana leaves (substitute for plates), serving the dishes/curries one by one to everyone's plate (leaf) and ends with a payasam (desert).
The amazing thing about putting ona-pookalam (flower carpet) is that no mater how bizarre the design, it will become a fantabulous one after adding the flowers. If I could see one today, it will add a sparkle to my eyes.
Onashamsagal!
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