Monday, September 15, 2008

Onam in Pictures

Being Christians, the festival of Onam is not one of religious significance for us, but definitely of cultural importance from the Keralite perspective. This year was the first time I've celebrated the festival in the land of its origin, and since the whole family on hubby's side was together, we went all-out to make it memorable.


Our humble first-time effort at making the traditional pookalam (flower carpet) in front of the house, a totally family affair with hubby & me drawing the main outlines and everyone else involved in plucking petals and carefully filling in the design. The second pic has a fork in the corner ..... our "sophisticated" pookalam shaping tool :D


Our Onam sadya (meal) served traditionally in the banana leaf.



A row of elephants at a nearby temple; there was to be a major procession later in the evening, but the rain decided otherwise. Fortunately, it let up enough for a fireworks display later that night. Unfortunately, my night-time photography skills aren't worth mentioning, forget about blogging :), so that's pretty much it for this post.

7 comments:

  1. beautiful pictures, I love this tradition of pokkalam and kerala sarees.....hmm...they are gorgeous.....here my malyaali friend brought 2-3 sarees from her home town in Kerala, and I loved them. Even food on banana leaf is so tempting.What is the menu of tradition Sadya?

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  2. WoW....lucky u. So ok, we also had a good time here but nothing can beat the kerala onam...the festival & its essence lingers in the air.
    The pictures are good!!!!!! The pookalam has come out really well. Bet it made ur heart ache to see it withering.

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  3. Good pics.,. From festival point of view ;)

    The following of traditional festives is always refreshing.,.

    I know its quite late, yet i didnt know you were a Keralite. Belated Onam Wishes to you and your Family.

    Cheers.

    Prashant
    *+

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  4. Renu - thanks! The work on the Kerala saris is called 'kasavu' so these saris are called 'kasavu saris'. Not sure what the entire authentic sadya menu is, but some of the usual items are rice (of course!), sambhar, 1 dal, avial, thoran (vegetable with coconut), inji thial (a kind of ginger pickle), and various other vegetarian preparations and my favourite - pappadum!!! I guess there is some regional variation in the menus within Kerala, coz my mom prepares certain other dishes different from what I had this time.


    Reflections - yes, the overall festive atmosphere was really great. I'm happy the pookalam made it through that full day, and yes, I did feel a twinge on seeing it drying up later :)


    Thought Warp & Prashant - thank you very much :)

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  5. hey belated happy onam! The pics look lovely - esp the pokkam. It's beautiful...

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  6. Deeplydip - Thank you for the wishes & the visit!!

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  7. Anonymous8:42 PM

    Nice pictures...
    Thanks !

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