The festival called ONAM

Yesterday was Thiru-onam, the 4th day and the most significant of all among the ten day celebrations of the Onam, the top cultural festival of Kerala, my native place. Kerala, is the southern most state of India, arguably the most beautiful with a very clean environment and inhabited by people who are among the most educated and lively people in the country. Many times, they are so lively that none of them will allow any industries to come up in the state (that is a different story, but)! But, fortunately because of this very fact that there are no industries, there is very little influx of people from other states into Kerala, like me, who actually belong to the capital city of the state, came to Bangalore in another state, in search of a job and living. We will discuss about all these, in a later post. Right now, we will talk about the myth behind this festival called Onam.

It is a myth and everybody knows that. But, every Keralite believes in it and truly lives up to it. Though Onam was accepted as Kerala's national festival during early 1960's, it has defintely been around in Kerala, observed by one and all of the Keralites, for several years before that, maybe even several centuries earlier. I don't have much affinity to history, to have known the true fact.

Long time back in the history of Kerala, there was an 'asura' king called Mahabali, who was very noble to all his subjects, so noble that his fame started to spread in all the 14 worlds (the universe, is believed to have 14 worlds in the universe according to the Hindu mythology; I don’t know what these ‘worlds’ could signify in modern astronomy – maybe planets, maybe galaxies, or may even be entirely different universes, which is hypothesized by the most modern string theory).

Though regarded as the most noble among all kings who ruled Kerala ever since history, Mahabali was an asura and as all asuras wanted, he too wanted to be on the top of the devas and rule over them. So, he perfomed a great yaga (a practice of prayer conducted in front of a large fireplace), at the end of which he believed to be blessed with the supreme power, that will help him conquer the devas in the heavens.

The news about Mahabali, the asura king, reached Indra too, who is the king of the heavens and the , one of the 14 worlds. He started worrying about his own existence and the inhabitants of his kingdom, and approached Mahavishnu, the almighty, the one who created the universe…Mahavishnu thought hard over this and realizing the greatness of the King Mahabali, decided that he is worth another ‘avatar’ to conquer the King. Thus was born Vamana – the fifth avatar of the GOD.

Vamana was a small boy, when he arrived at the great yaga, performed by Mahabali, It is believed that Vamana asked for some land, only as much as he can measure using his feet 3 times over. Mahabali didn't suspect this little kid and hence readily agreed. Then, Vamana began to grow and grow and grow, till he became as huge as his one foot could measure out the whole of the sky, the other measured the whole of the land and didn't have the place to put him 3rd foot on! Now, the truly benevolant and true to his words Mahabali, lowered himself and asked Vamana to rest his foot on the king's own head. So, Vamana did and lowered the king to the patala (the world below the earth). But, while doing so Vamana was so obvisouly pleased with the king's humbleness and honesty that he allowed the king to have a boon of his choice. The King, so true to his nature, asked if he could visit his kingdom and his subjects he loved so much, once in a year...The request was immediately granted and thus was born the ONAM...

ONAM is celebrated during that time of the year, when the Great King Mahabali is believed to come to his kingdom and visit his subjects for a full 10 days...What a truly noble idea this whole thing is, correct?

For more details on ONAM, visit http://www.onamfestival.org/