My Intimate Onam
-Priya Joseph
Writer
No matter how hard I try, I can’t seem to recollect having a grand “sadya”(feast) or creating a beautiful “pookalam” (floral carpet) at home during Onam when I was a little child. Back then, our garden only had jasmine and firecracker flowers. Neither did we spent money to buy flowers, nor were we allowed to go to the neighbors’ homes to ask for them. So, how could us kids create elaborate “pookalams”? Even today, I feel there is an unappeased little girl wandering inside me who stubbornly saw jasmine and firecracker flowers solely as hair adornments, and instead dreamed of creating vivid, kaleidoscopic patterns on floors using flowers that explode with a myriad of hues . As Onam draws near, I often find myself lost in thought, gazing at the nostalgia-filled pages of magazines and newspapers.
It’s like glimpsing the resplendent “pookalams” in other people’s front yards during my childhood and being mesmerized by their beauty. In those days, my vision of a “perfect” Onam involved Papa, Mummy, my siblings, and I working together to create the “pookalam.” My greatest desire during those days was for all of us to sit together at the same dining table, crack jokes (that was an absolute must!) and eat a grand, authentic feast. For Godknows- what reason that wish remained unfulfilled. There’s a saying, Uthradathinuuchakazhinjaal achimaarkkokkeyumvepraalam. However, this lady in Chicago starts feeling the jitters many days before the grand occasion! To be exact, the preparations begin shortly after Mother’s Day. I sow vegetable and flower seeds, plant saplings, all with Onam in mind.
Are the banana leaves growing large enough to hold all the “sadya” dishes? Are the flowers for the “pookalam” – chrysanthemums, roses, zinnias, and hydrangeas – flourishing as they should? These details occupy my thoughts. What is it about Onam that holds such allure for me? Strangely, the nostalgia factor for this festival seems close to zero. I nurture the yard-long bean, the ivy gourd, the pumpkin, and the cucumber vines, coaxing them over their trellises, all in anticipation of our intimate foursome Onam. The curry leaf tree, nurtured with care, generously offers its foliage for the Onam “sadya,” only to stand bare later, its naked branches exuding a sense of accomplishment.
The recipes of Malamel Neelakantan Namboodiri, cut out from an old women’s magazine, form the bedrock of my Onam “sadya.” These are followed verbatim, and meticulously, so when I lay out the scrumptious dishes on the banana leaves, I can’t help but feel a sense of accomplishment. Here, in the Windy City, I celebrate the “sadya-plus-pookalam” Onam or the “intimate” Onam that was never mine in Kerala. I celebrate it as if I’m reclaiming both the principal and the interest. The hustle and bustle of the Onam festivities, the crowds, they never held my fascination, then now or ever. That’s why, only after I’ve savoured our small, personal Onam, do I participate in the numerous Onam celebrations organized by various associations. It’s a determined act of a girl who was denied her cherished Onam “sadya” and Pookkalam in her childhood home.