Onam celebrated with great fervour, enthusiasm in Oman

Muscat: Onam, the traditional festival of Kerala, was celebrated with great enthusiasm in Oman on Sunday.

The day is marked with people dressed in traditional attires paying floral tributes and having Sadya meals.

The event, an agricultural festival, celebrates the rich harvest of the land, thus symbolising joy and prosperity.

It was celebrated with colourful ‘pookkalam’ of different types of flowers welcoming friends and relatives in their traditional Kerala attire and wishing everyone a happy Onam.

Onam is celebrated in the Chingam month, which marks the beginning of the Malayalam calendar. It is celebrated to mark the homecoming of King Mahabali, during whose reign the state was said to have witnessed the golden era.

Madhu B Nambiar, a long-time resident of Oman, said, “This time we were lucky to get a public holiday on Sunday (Thiruonam) as a result of three-day weekend holidays many of my friends were able to celebrate this joyous festival by going to Kerala and celebrate with family, close relatives and friends.”

“Because of the three-day holidays in Oman, the shopping malls were all crowded as people got sufficient time to make Onam shopping and thronging the hypermarkets,” Janardhan, another expat from Kannur, working for the last 10 years in Muscat said, “During the Onam festival, people usually wear traditional kasavu sarees and mundu (dhoti). It is a time when family members and friends gather and exchange gifts like new dresses.”

“During Onam, unique food items are prepared at home and distributed to others. One of the highlights of the Onam celebrations is the preparation of Onasadya, a special vegetarian feast,” he further added.

The national festival of Kerala

Onam is a nostalgia that brings back memories from childhood and the simple ways of life that prevailed in the villages back in the day. It is the celebration of the myth of Mahabali

People from Kerala have flooded the stores to make last minute purchases for the festival which is celebrated by all members of the community irrespective of their religion.

From supermarkets and shopping centres, to restaurants and jewellery shops, hundreds of commercial outlets, mainly those catering to the Indian community, have come up with various Onam offers and plans.

The 10-day Onam celebrations in Kerala started with the Atham celebrations on August 20. It is a festival that honours King Mahabali and Vamana. People of Kerala welcome the king in a symbolic way by arranging flower carpets and with traditional dances and games so as to give him the impression that they are happy as in his time.

Floral carpets are made by women dressed in traditional saris. They assemble and sing a well-known song in honour of the occasion.

Onasadya

The Onam feast has to be had even if it means selling all your assets to do so - an old adage goes along these lines. That sums up the relevance of an Onasadya.

 The measure of Onam celebrations is directly proportional to the type sadya one had. The various dishes that comprise an Onasadya make it special.

They being parippu, poppadom, ghee, sambar, kaalan, rasam, moru, aviyal, thoran, erissery, olan, kichadi, pachadi, kootu curry, pickles of ginger, lime and mango, plantain (nendran variety of banana) chips, sarkaravaratti, payasams of ada (large flat rice flakes), lentils, vermicelli and rice in milk.

Of this, the number of payasams available might be anywhere from one to two or more.