Onam Celebrations

September 4th, 2010

Today the SJPD group had the honor of celebrating Onam with the Visthar staff/family, friends of the community, and Bandhavi girls. Onam is celebrated to welcome back King Mahabali. King Mahabali’s spirit, according to legend, is said to visit the town of Kerala and it’s people at the time of Onam.

The legend of King Mahabali goes as followed: A long time ago, a king named Mahabali ruled all of Kerala. Mahabali was a wise, and gracious ruler who respected, and appreciated his people dearly. Everybody during the reign of King Mahabali was happy and very prosperous. The gods felt threatened by King Mahabali’s rising power throughout the land, and decided to challenge his reign. Although King Mahabali was a gracious man he let his own self-interest interfere with the gods when he was challenged. Because King Mahabali did so much good, and loved his people unconditionally, God allowed him to come back to earth once a year to visit his people, despite his character flaw.

The celebration started off with music played by a few of the Bandhavi girls. As a large group of SJPD students, and others there to celebrate Onam, we were led from the entrance of Visthar to the other side of campus, picking up “King Mahabali” along the way. We were led to one of the larger, open building called the Alah. We were welcomed by intricately designed flower mats called Pookalam. After King Mahabali spoke of his legend and his people we feasted on a wide array of food. It was definitely a cultural experience. Long mats were sprawled across the floor for us to sit on cross-legged as we ate off of enormous leafs. I was baffled by the size of the leaf, and why it was so necessary to have such a large “plate.” After being served approximately 13 different items I soon understood why the leaf was so huge.

After being served, and helping serve to the rest of the group we participated in games. It was welcoming to know that everyone at the Onam celebration was encouraged to participate in the games. I am unsure if the games had any proper names correlated with them, but I refered to them as horse-tail  tag, circle bike game, potato sack fight/balance act, slow bike race, the potato sack race, and lastly the pinata (which was an actual pot filled with red liquid).

It is safe to say that I have never participated in a Onam celebration before, ate any of the food that was served in its true Indian form, and never played any of the games aside from the potato sack race, and pinata (this one made of cardboard, and filled with candy). However, the community that I was surrounded in all day was so welcoming, and gracious. There may have been a language barrier between those that spoke English and those that perhaps spoke Kannada, but the enjoyment of the food, and the laughter and joy that the games brought did not need any translation.