Happy onam !!

Onam again !!!

This time amidst untimely rains ,unusually bigger potholes on our so called roads, longer power cuts and glaring administrative apathy and celebrated arrogance visible everywhere...

Onam there fore has more meaning in our troubled times..... Onam is an introspection for every Malayali hereafter to be referred as mallu , to think about the days that has gone…
Mahabali on whose memory onam is celebrated was supposedly the best ruler that any society could hope for and we had it here in this state......
Liberty, equality and fraternity ruled us and we were happy… no one stole.. no one ever told lies and no one cheated…Well ! If it sounds utopian it is probably because we have got used to the system other wise.....Our rulers today would have taken a lot of hard work to take us where we are today .......think over !!!…
Long after the golden age is lost ,mallus world over sit and ponder and get sinked in nostalgia unparalleled ,when onam comes calling…

Onam for me is missing many a things…

The words are mine but the feeling is every ones’s… nostalgia is there for everyone… I know the Gujarati in US too misses home and so is the Tamil in Malaysia… but when the Mallu misses it it is a different feeling..,,,, why because it makes him work more ..,....it makes him more productive which inside the state he rarely is…

When a huge sum of 40 pounds is paid to eat an onam sadya in a vazhayila at the leaf in Birmingham and Rasa in London ,the Mallu miss onam and his home state…..
when he toils in the endless sands of dubai and the middle east he misses the rains and the tender touch of the soft breeze that the monsoon so very benevolently has poured on this small state....
when he is taking the sun in the long topless beaches of Sydney he misses the beautiful women here and their attire and the oiled hair with a tumba or tulasi to adorn it…

I have missed it all ...... and have seen how deep that feeling is when you are away from this place, which some tourism director inadvertently termed as Gods own country, which later on became one of the best positioning statements…

I miss my childhood with all my 24 cousins under one roof, all the unless and aunts and ammavans, ammayis, aliyans, and machunans and all the team work that naturally built in us…..

I miss the long baths in pamba and the unabashed frolic that we had and what my kids now miss in their concrete abodes and TV onams….

I miss the pookalam made of thetti, thumba and mukkootii not the imported chrysanthemems that come all the way from other places to adore the mallu courtyard,,, I miss the poovili and the ona pottan..

I miss the pulikali and the karadi teams that roamed around in the street making onam one of its kind…

I miss the women ,who woke up at 5 and did a lot of work.. and then in the attire that BBC has ranked as simply elegant did rounds and rounds of kaikottikali….

I miss my grand mother who would make wonderful mambazha pulisseri ,inji kari and pazhamanga uppilitathu,..and it was enough to eat truck loads of rice and still feel energetic..

I miss all the friends who in herds moved around and made pookalams everywhere.. no jealousy and no apathy..who carried loads of stones and threw them on every mango tree, climbed on every jack tree and jumped into every pond and river…

I miss the sadya.. the kalan, the olans and the innumerable varieties of payasam…

I miss the mundu and the comfort that it gave as compared to the pants, the formal shirts and the attachments… no matter whether it’s a Louis philipe or Van huesen, the mundu and the natural ventilation and aeration is a mallu luxury that we have missed out…

I miss all my cousins and brothers and sisters who all for search of lively hood have migrated and are not able to come home, even though it is said that mallus world over come home for onam… in their minds yes, but not always in practice…

I miss the long swings that were made for onam under mango trees and jack fruit trees when I see my kids enjoying onam glued with their favorite cartoon network and my wife with the onam special interview with nayarthara OPENING her heart…

I miss my mother who told me last day that she has forgotten how to make a good sadya.. when there is no one to eat it what is the point in making..?

I miss onam as it was..as the great poet ONV kurup has described ..oro vattavum onakaliyudu talam ayanjeedunu njangalil…. I miss the fun but am happy that atleast I am here unlike my brother who works for a foreign bank in a foreign land for a foreign boss and worse eating foreign food even on the Tiruvonam day…

With all its imbalances to live here is great…

Enjoy the day, but please go back to your roots… how ever high a tree grows the roots are important...…
Happy Onam !!!