During Onam, celebrate the return of the king with joy

It’s that season when surnames don’t matter in Kerala. Onam is for everyone and everyone is making the most of the 10-day festival, a time for new clothes, new beginnings and the inimitable traditional spread.

Bobby George, an assistant auditor, is looking forward to the “best vegetarian meal of the year.” Although it will just be a couple of dishes and not the full-course meal on a plantain leaf, it will still be a significant event for George.

“It will probably be avial, one or two vegetables, dal curry and a curry made with ginger,” he says.

Lunch is the most memorable and much-awaited ritual on the day. Praveen Bose, a writer, has taken the day off to devote it completely to Onam. “I will wake up early, bathe, wear new clothes, go to the temple,” says he about his day.

But the much-awaited moment is the one when he will get to savour his favourite prathaman, a variety of payasam which is Kerala’s special dish. “I wait for it all year,” he says.

Of course, it’s all about the lunch and Keralites look forward to feasting together. Smitha Jithesh and her husband plan to join four families for lunch. “I am making sambar and pachdi,” says this mother of a newborn. Another mother of a newborn, Divya Raghunandan will be “preparing just one dish — the beans thoran — at her mother’s place.”

She and her sister will be bringing their babies’ first Onam at their mother’s place where all cousins will congregate for the “mega lunch”, as entrepreneur Kavitha Nambiar, puts it. There will be “a yellow curry, brown curry, olan, inji puli, koottu curry made from Kabuli chana and elephant yam, pulcheri (a yogurt-based curry made with sweet mangoes in her kitchen), avial, sambar, thick dal eaten with ghee and papadam, butter milk, two vegetables, banana chips, jaggery-coated banana, mango pickle, ada prathaman (payasam made with rice)."

All these items have to be laid out on the leaf and that makes it the authentic Onam sadya.

Nambiar has already bought rose and marigold flowers to make athapoo or pookulam (flower carpet) that she and her daughter will make in front of their door.

“We just go with the flow, and stop when we run out of flowers. A few people even decide on the design and then buy flowers as required,” she says. The intention is to keep the celebrations as traditional as possible.

Deepti Sashidhar is at home with parents in Alleppey in Kerala for the harvest festival for the first time during her 10 years of marriage. During that long absence, Onam’s lost its charm, she says. It is no longer what she remembers it to be.

“We make it a grand affair when we are outside the state, making a conscious effort to call people and get together. I feel, in Kerala, the excitement isn’t as much as it is when one is away celebrating with friends,” she says. However, when in Kerala one would also get to see some traditional arts performed and that’s worth the visit, say others.