Happy onam everyone.
I found
this excellent article which I think is worth reproducing here.
Onam - The Festival of Exuberance
Kerala is celebrating another New Year- Year 1179, according to the Malayalam calendar, also known as “Kollavarsham”.
Chingam or Bhadrapada, the first month of the calendar ushers in ONAM, the national fiesta of Kerala. After the rain drenched Karkidakam with its privations, Chingam is a welcome month of plenty. The sky becomes blue, the deep forest becomes greener and it is time to reap the harvest, time to celebrate and to rejoice along with the Nature. And Onam epitomizes the newfound vigour and enthusiasm about everything around. It is celebrated with traditional Malayalee fervour with visit to temples, family get-togethers, gifting each other clothes called Ona-kkodi and lots of merry making.
This picturesque ten-day harvest festival has been part of Malayalee psyche for centuries now. There are records of Onam being celebrated during the Sangam Age. Onam festivities have been recorded during the time of Kulasekhara Perumals around A.D 800. It is believed that during those days the whole of Chingam was celebrated as Onam season.
Christ Nagar, Kowdiar : March, 1989.
9:00 AM in the morning.
A chaotic scene unfolds before you. A bunch of kids trying to cram that last piece of information into their already overloaded brains. A few parents who have accompanied their kids to share their pain in this moment of agony, stand beside
helpless. The teachers having taken a sadistic pleasure in preparing the most gruesome method of torture known to a kid and going by the name of
Examination stand in front of the room gleefully rubbing their hands in anticipation of the first bell.
In the farthest corner of the mail hall, You see a small kid with a smile on his face. From his looks, he must be in the fifth standard. Maybe, sixth.
A kid smiling before the examination ? Something is definetely not right here. Your immediate concern is to whether he has gotten hold of a leaked question paper.
You decide to take a closer look. You find the eyes closed and a dazed expression lingering on the kid's face. Hesitant to break the emotion but driven by a desire to know the reason for the smile, you gently tap on the kid's shoulder. The kid comes to his senses with a start. The conversation goes like this.
“I know, I have no right to ask. But i would like to know the reason behind your smile”. You ask hesitantly.
“My parents have promised to buy me a Hero Cycle once the holidays start. I was day dreaming about cycling through the Pattom main road”, The kid says with a sheepish smile.
and you walk away with a whimsical smile wondering about the vagaries of the human mind.
Yes. I was promised a cycle. A month and a thousand day dreams later, I was told, for a variety of reasons that I will not have it that year.
Being cursed with an over active imagination, My mind works like an yet to be discovered time machine. You give me a little to hope, a promise of something in the future and then I switch on this thing called imagination and proceed to live out the future in full techni-color inside my mind. I create a world of my own, decorate it with my dreams and feed it with my hopes.
That year, Time taught me a lesson.
To wait for the future.
Sadly, I was busy day dreaming about the cycle ( which now was to come next year ) when the lesson was delivered and paid no heed to it.
Last Week, I took an imagined flight to india and landed among my loved and dear ones. Behind closed eyes, I had seen a month ahead and felt a joy for an event yet to occur.
Yesterday, Mr.Time delivered the age old lesson of “Dont build castles in the air” again to me.
Yesterday, I was told that I am not going anywhere atleast till the end of the year and maybe till summer next year. My plane had crashed before it took off. All for a few dollars more.
But then, I am not a little kid any more, to accept everything that others decide for me. Today, I have started a chain of events which hopefully will culminate in my still making that flight.
Do pray for me.