Happy Onam 2022

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    I am in the middle of writing an essay for my supervisor when a WhatsApp Group Video Call notification vibrates on my desk. I look up from the randomly splayed, unstapled sheets of paper to see my roommates calling. I pause the Malayalam Lofi playlist I was listening to, remove my earbuds and rush out of the room, unable to contain my excitement. They'd gone home for the weekend celebrations while I had chosen to stay back for work. The next ten minutes zip by fast with the three of them telling me how busy it is with preparations for the mouth-watering sadya of the day and showing how they've successfully managed to create beautiful pookkalams (flower arrangements). They log off one by one and I sit near a plant with a bright red flower, gently stroking its petals - not having the heart to pluck it and make a minimalistic last-minute pookkalam of my own. I am taken back to last year's Onam when it had been a sunny day with the kind of weather perfect for hanging a swing from the big tree in our front yard and putting together an intricate pookkalam at our doorstep. At that time of day, twenty minutes before half-past-noon, I was involved in various tasks - chopping up an assortment of vegetables for the aviyal and the thoran, grating coconuts for the pacchadi, and slicing cashews into halves for the payasam. And, even though the sadya is traditionally supposed to be vegetarian, we all liked a little bit of extra protein too. It wasn't about sweating it out in the kitchen for a meal that would disappear in less than an hour; it was about how all of us took out time from our schedules to sit around, pulling feet, nibbling from the pile when mom wasn't looking, blasting 'Thithithaara Thithithai' from the speakers and spending the day - together. Onam isn't just about the food, the boat races or the puli kali; it's also about joy, love, family and most of all - memories.

P.S.: Happy Onam Everyone!
P.P.S.: The sadya in question:

Onasadya


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