A Most Memorable Onam

Those of you who may have missed my chirographies, I am back (If no one, I am there....)
This time its about Onam. Onam.The festival, which bonds every Malayali together, similar to, dissimilar components in a collage. A Malayali, irrespective of his religion, caste and region, wishes to be present at his home in Kerala to have the afternoon lunch. This lunch is a grandeur feast that would shed his worries and satiate him for sometime. Onam falls in the month of chingam, the first one in the Malayalam calendar at a time when the constellation would be Leo (Leo or Lion is called Simham in Malayalam hence the variation, chingam). It is the time when nature embellishes herself between the Idavapathi (NE Monsoon) and Thulavarsham (SW Monsoon) similar to a damsel on her wedding day, preparing for the transformation from a girl to a woman. (I can't part with more metaphors and similes so let me try and avoid their usage.)

As the folklore goes, Onam commemorates the return of the legendary Asura King Maha Bali who was trampled on by Vamana-the incarnation of Lord Vishnu and banished to hell. It is believed that before he agreed to this act of treachery from the lord, the king got a boon for visiting his subjects once a year. This yearly visit by the great Maha Bali is what is now celebrated as Onam.

Onam brings back fond memories from my childhood. The memories from times when we tied Oonjaal (swings) to coconut trees, had floral decorations on the 10 days of Onam called Pookkalam, played Pulikkali (a game of tiger), watched boat races, visited our ancestral home, ate delicacies and sang melodious songs. There is also the adoring memory of my grand father getting me Onappanthu (a new hand ball) whenever we visited his house on this occasion .I could never think of missing Onam, it was so very important to me. Infact, it is so important that my age reflects on the number of occasions I had celebrated Onam. However, it seemed like my stoic companion Mr. Fate had something altogether different in store for me this year.

Being thousands of miles away from my hometown did not in anyway hinder my Onam visits back home for the past two years. But this time because of my little sisters nuptials I had to pre-pone my Kerala visit and hence sacrifice my Onam at home. I didn’t think it would affect me much since Pune- the cultural city was already being tickled by Lord Ganesh's blessing. Deadlines crept up in my project. We became nocturnal beings missing breakfast for a week. The irony was that, 15th of September - the day of Onam was the same day when we had a major delivery from our team. As the day neared my mind had already taken leave from my body. It was already wandering around paddy fields, throwing pebbles that drew ripples on the pond, smelling the payasams (a sweet dish), adulating the Onanilavu (moonlight at this season), feeling rejuvenated from the festive air, wearing kodi-mundu (traditional attire for the occasion) and awaiting the arrival of Maveli (or Mahabali) with my progenitors. The only way to bring him back was to have a feast on the day of Thiruvonam (The 10th day of Onam). A decision was taken by me and one of my Malayali colleagues, Naveen to go to a famous kerala food joint called "Southern Spice” and having the Sadya (or feast) from there.

After getting permission we cruised towards the food joint in the mid-afternoon through the drizzling rain. How could the rain-god stop us from satisfying the hunger of our soul? On reaching our destination we found that it was crowded with other Malayalis from all over Pune. To get a place to atleast sit seemed impossible. We logically hit on the idea of getting the feast parceled. I could not control my excitement and had a tough time holding plantain leaves and guarding the pappadams (papads) from not breaking when we ran into potholes. We reached Naveen's home and spread the thooshanila (plantain leaf), switched on a Malayalam channel (ambience needed of course), adorned the leaf with the pickles and other curries and started splurging. I will walk you briefly through the process of eating a Keralian feast. The leaf will be served with all the pickles, curries and the pappadam on it. The first course of rice is to be had with daal, followed by another with sambhar, after which two to three different varieties of payasams follow, then it is the turn for rasam and pullissery (a kind of butter milk) with more rice of course. Sounds heavy, doesn’t it? Yes, so it is and delicious too. We struggled to make out which curry was packed into which parcel and sometimes we ended up pouring the wrong one onto the leaf but somehow we cupped our hands and scooped up the fluid remaining on the leaf. We managed to lap it up in half an hours time .It was not the most delicious feast I had, but it surely quenched the hunger of my transcendental companion - my stomach. After that, I called home where my parents were celebrating Onam with my sister and brother in law. They were happy to know that I had somehow managed a feast atleast.

Friends, I want to end this composition by playing the harp on a philosophical note. What is Onam? Is it just a festival celebrated by Malayalis across the world? Or is it just an event for getting together and celebrating? Or is it just an occasion to remember the culture that we forget? No. It is not just any or all these. Onam is an embodiment of the responsibility a person has toward his roots, his ancestors, his culture and his soul. It cannot be bound in the reins of caste, creed or religion. As long as I continue counting in Malayalam (something I can never avoid) I will fulfill this responsibility.

Eventhough a little belated, I wish you all a very happy Onamashamsakal (Onam Wishes)!

Memoirs - Bhaiyya is out of the flat

Its a Lazy afternoon a bit relaxtion from the "Mere Paas Kaam Hai" atmosphere...Again wings of creativity and winds of time drives the bird named Imagination from Sharda Annexe towards the green valleys of tenses of past...It flew sorry is flying (lets make present continous) over the ridges , beaches and priaries digging deep through my cerebrum...Here it lands on an apartment in Deshpandepuram where ppl are celebrating birthday of Harpreet Singh Gill at the time when minute and hour hands of a clock embraces each other.April 2k3..Words are fumbling and limping I cant be poetic like Debu or Kumar....let me write within my capabilities..
Those where times when we- the tenants of Anand Nagar flat had limited no of keys among us...6 PPl and 3 keys atmost.....Anyway that night when we were ready for a sleep we got the info that Harpreet Singhs bday is there and celebrations rather daru party is going to start at Polash Babus flat there at Deshpandepuram...Soumya da as aalsi as usual gave way to his incapability of a body to continue on a state of rest or of uniform motion unless an external unbalanced force acts on it (in short inertia according to the 1st Law of motion) and we : me,bhaiyya,Shaaash,Debu and Abhi had to leave him in a state of semi-sleep...Debu had a key...Shashwat had a key and the third key which was mine was hidden inside the cupboard......
Anyway next scene flat of Polash Babu ..Everybody is in celebration mood to bash out Sardaar on his birthday..Khandelwal and Shashwat doing some class act with Surds cell and the consequences added essence to the whole scenario..Some drinks stocks were there and we also had some bottle on our flat.To fetch this bottle Shashwat went with Abhinandan . It was very difficult to wake Soumya up who had already entered into the "prajna" or dreamles state of sleep (courtesy Hindu Mythology)...He suggested the fellows to lock the door from outside inoder to prevent any Non Maskable Interrupt on his sleep state..Anyway the door was locked from outside
Daaru party is gaining momentum at Polash babus flat...All the bewdaas peeping through kaleidoscopes of their paste times...All in all fun was going...Suddenly Bhaiyya was doped by the nidra devi and he was rushing to flat in no time...Party mood was back on the flat...Polash babu had some revealations (which can affect his nuptial so leave it)...Debu in his nashaa recieves some call which he answered using his ever confusing dialect draped with daaru effect....Anyway finally the party was concluded and me and Shash had a walk till home..The nishachar habit cultivated at the training time still lingered around us ad we walked leasurely towards home...We were just in front of the flat when suddenly noticed a familier figure with chashma walking toward us.. No sooner did the words "Hei the guy looked like Rajesh" fell from our mouth than we realized its conformity..The expression on his face can't be portrayed by the greatest of the poets (be it Keats of Shelly)....The silence followed for a few seconds was more disturbing than the loudest of the sounds.....I was sitting and laughing on the floor....The dialogue followed was classy "Rehman is dunayaa mein bhaathi bhaathi ke log baate hai...Kuch log Aswani Shashwat Hote hai ..Kuch log sachmuch Soumya Prosad Ghosh hote hain" (the real sentence had a pronoun at the place of all nouns before censoring)..Now comes the flash back....
Rajesh who was affected by the sleep godesess was hoping towards the flat in no time...Poor guy didn't know that the flat is locked from outside...He tried break in the wall of Soumyas sleep with the NMI conjured and requested the aalsi to get him the key which was present at the flat..In that state the probability of him finding a key is less than .01% and he proved it right..Rajesh tried to call Debu from STD booth (he had to walk for a km for that)...Debu couldn't make out what the situation is and so our hero decided to wait for us to come..He had slept a bit on one of the benches , took up the job of watchman for a while, had walk and was waiting patiently....Finally almost 200 mins of waiting came to an end when we guys found him in that peculiar state of mind..Cannot blame him also ;-) (maaf karo....) ..
So the next dialogue delivered by the character was "Tum log jaake so jaao ..Main 10 min ke baad aa jaaonga " (Inertia played his part again and this time Bhaiyya is the victim. )...Guilty feeling and Fear from an angry man catalyzed our dashing to the beds...We were hearing some dialogue after 15 mins "Aaaj neend to kharaab hogaya saale logon ke chalte..Ab to TV dekhenge"....

Aftermath
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Being out of the house when it was locked seemed to be an infinite loop in his life...Similar incidents were repeated when he was made to keep waiting for others to come and open the door....If chief Vitalstatistix has got the fear of sky falling on his head our hero have the fear of being himself out of the flat still waiting for somebody to open it for him....Only advice to him .."No point of being a keymaster..Juzz be ready to give some gaalis in Bihari accent".....Concluding this boring narration replying to his famous "Yeh sab doston ka pyaar hai" with "Bhaiyya jee we will make sure that hum log tumse aisa hi pyaar karte rahenge"