Onam, o Sweet Onam -2

01.09.2009 - Syria : 
Outside the fence, dogs make a chorus. They are united in their agony and ecstasy. That is dog’s life. They live their life as it comes to them. Here, inside the fence, live their best friends. Look, even in this deserted land, we can not dispense with fences around us. This tiny project is the only place where human beings live. This vast expanse of land is uninhabited by any other people. This land belongs to none of the inhabitants here. Still, fence is built all along the campus. 

 

Dogs are prevented from entering the campus. So, they roam around outside the campus. How do they survive? I asked this question to many, but no answer from anyone. Still, I found the answer. The One who gave mouth to them will provide food also. That is natural law of justice.

Inside the fence, we human beings enjoy all the trappings of the material life. Television beams varieties of programmes from masalas to spirituality. Choice is ours. Air-conditioner, Refrigerator and the water heater works 24x7. No one bothers to switch them off. It is no one’s property. And devil may care for the carbon foot - prints.

 

At the canteen, we collect more food than we need. With absolute nonchalance, we throw away half of what we collect. This may not even go to the mongrels wandering around outside the fence, living at the mercy of the nature. This is saddening.

 

But, I thought of writing about Onam when I started this essay. However, the barking of those best frinds of human beings from the distant terrain refuses to go unheeded. Today is Uthradom. Moon sets by 4 am on the Onam day. I have never seen moon setting at 4 am on Onam day in the past 30 years. Onam was never as exciting as it was around thirty years back. The excitement an Uthadom night used to bring about was more than what the Onam day did.

 

 We boys get together for a cycle ride on the Uthradom evening.  None of us had a bicycle. Owning a bicycle was a luxury in Olavaipe those times, honestly. So, we had to depend on cycles taken on rent. Rent was fifty paisa per hour. For many of the guys among us, even this amount was a big one. Of course, we were from a better off back ground, thanks to the restaurant in Visakhapatnam.

 

To get a cycle on rent, we had to walk three kilometers and reach Poochakkal. One or two among us, who already know riding, used to tread all the way and bring the much adored two wheelers. By 5 or six in the evening we start the ride. Our territory was  nearly one kilometer stretch of road in front of our houses. We take turns and ride the cycles up and down. We never felt tired. 

Those days, we used to wonder, why the moon does not have the full shape on the Onam eve. We needed it the most on Uthradom night. Our excitement does not die down even at 4 in the morning. But, riding after 4 was difficult as the road plunges into pitch darkness. Not even a single street lamp glows in the lamp post. Still, our spirit keeps us going. We never stop riding till the day breaks.

 

In between, we take a break to make attappokkalam - the flower decoration in front of our fore-court. This is the last day of the ten day ritual of decorating the forecourts with pookkalam. Every one of us makes pookkalam in  our houses. It was our duty to make attappokkallams from Atham to thiruvonam.

 

Even as we are on the road, our elders too go sleepless on the Onam eve, busy preparing the chips and pickles. They too never tired of preparations. Every time we swooped into the kitchen , we come out with pocket full of chips. This was the fuel that kept us going all through the night.

 

Those days, we never had chance to buy onam from the market. We had made our own Onam. Fortunately or unfortunately, we never had an opportunity to buy ready made Onam offered by the textile shops, Packaged food shops and the “media syndicate”. We did not have televison in our houses. I considered myself lucky about it, for, we had an unadulterated, no-holds barred Onam every time.

 

The sweetness of those memories will never fade. Come another Onam. My little kid like yours may be watching TV on the Onam day. He/she must be asking us “Mummy/daddy, what is this Onam?”....and we, with our anglicised Malayalam must be straining every nerve of ours to drive home the concept of Onam to a child that knows no Malayalam! There lived a dude called Mahabali once upon a time...

 

Wish you all a happier Onam this time too….