It is special.
Devoid of caste or creed,its more of a regional festival.It is the national festival of Kerala and the personal festival of all keralites around the world.
My family too had a nice Onam,the festival of God's own country....Kerala.
I had a good Onam,though not the best of ones i ever had.
I still remember the days i was at Kerala,when i was pretty young at least a decade ago when i used to wait for Onam to come and the Onam holidays always used to be memorable.The days when i used to get up early and go flower-searching for the pookalam(flower arrangement) and steal flowers from the neighborhood.They were the real Onam,we enjoyed what we did and did what we enjoyed.Then we along with the elders of the family prepared the pookalam.
And the last day of school before Onam used to be fun,the pookalam at school used to be great fun.The tension,the drama and the contest,wow,they were just so nice.
Then getting ready for the all important day of tiruvonam wearing our Onakodi(new clothes for Onam).Then Onam was the time when all the family members used to get-together and share their thoughts on the times they had during their childhood days.Our family is a big one and the count of the number of people there was quite a big number.
Then the all important Onasadhya(feast),my grandma(dads mom) is among the best cooks of all times i am sure,she had no problems preparing such a feast for the big crowd,infact she used to enjoy that task(my mummy would run away in such a situation).But my pappa says mummy has got my grandma's touch in her cooking.
But these days,Onam has become just another festival,though a little special it has lost its aura of real Onam.No more holidays for Onam(thats because i am in Chennai) and no more pookalams,no more onakodis.Now a days Onam is limited to wishing everyone and then then Onasadhya.Thats it.But the day of Onam still remains a nice day.It is different from the normal routine of ours,i mean the routine of the urban keralites.
At my place we had a small Onasadhya with few guests.Nothing much.
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