The Essence of Onam

Another Prosperous Onam has arrived at our door steps at Kerala.
A celebration of prosperity and life.
Of the harvest and the bounty of nature.
Of the vibrant colours of the spring and the mouth watering treats.
Of the refreshing fragrance of the blossoms and the sweet chirps of the birds.

But today, regretfully,even this celebration of life too has been commercialised!

Pookalam (Floral Carpets) ,one of the most integral parts of Onam , is inarguably one of the most enjoyable activites of Onam. Traditionally children (mostly) went around collecting flowers, wild and grown, planned, designed and set the pookalam. Since a couple of years, flowers can be bought taking out ,in my opinion, the most enjoyable facet of making a pookalam, ie. collecting flowers with friends and family. And now its possible to go walk upto a flower shop, pick a design, hand over the money and they'll come and setup the whole pookalam! Where's the fun in that?

One might argue that this is aimed at all the companies and such who put up pookalam. Yes its true that most ventures setup a pookalam in their offices often incorporating their own symbols. But, if you can't invest a couple of hours for this then why bother even putting up a pookalam?

On to the next issue. There aren't any flowers! My sis and I spent a lot of time searching for flowers along the roadsides and were hard pressed to find enough flowers for a decent pookalam. That said, it turned out pretty well at the end.

This year I was feeling a bit adventurous and went ahead a step further and made this.....

Yes, an "Electronic Carpet" if you may.....

Hope the years to come will preserve or even revive the age old traditions of Onam........

Notes to the Future Me - The Little Girl

If you are wondering about the title, I'm leaving this post to the future me so that one day when I read my old posts, I would remember these occasions and moments and they might come in handy at the time.

Well, here goes....

For my college admission process, I had to go to Trivandrum. We went by train and near our seat was a small family, father, mother and a girl of 4-5 years. Her (the girl's) name is Shangari. They were from Mangalore.

I usually don't play around with small kids. I think its more a result of my circumstances than a choice but that's a whole another story..... On with the story, the girl was very much interested in playing with me and we did so for the next 4 hours, almost the whole length of our journey. She was an astonishingly smart and bright girl.

At the end of the journey, she was woken up (she was made to sleep for sometime) and she bid me farewell by wishing me "Study Well". To think that a 4 year old wished me so was so very surprising to me. She was told earlier that I was going to college but I would never ever even have dreamt about such a wish. Thank You dear.

Afterwards, I was just wondering how weird and wonderful it would be to meet her again after many years. I hope so.....