KOCHI: Apart from being a festival of harvest, Onam is a festival of gifts. The Mahabali legend tells the story of the generous king gifting his very kingdom to Lord Vamana. No wonder Onam creates an ambience of giving and receiving gifts. There was a time when the tillers of the land offered the best of the produce from the land to the landlords in the harvest season as a grateful gesture.
They did so to win their favour and retain the landholdings for their continued cultivation as a means of their livelihood. This tradition was then known as ‘adiyara’ or ‘Onakatcha.’ Later on this ritual has evolved into a practice of gift-giving due to the progressive socio-economic changes that took place in Kerala.
In this season of goodwill and joy, a substantial portion of the goods and pieces of clothing in particular sold in the market change hands as gifts to one’s nearest and dearest. It lifts the spirits of both the giver and the recipient of the gifts alike. It is no less valuable than the gifts one receives on occasions like birthday, marriage and retirement. It gives a sense of being cared for and it is this sense that keeps the world going.
Giving ‘Onapudava’ and food grains and vegetables for preparing sadya captures the quintessence of Onam. Parents and grandparents would always love to behold their tiny children clad in ‘manjakodi’ - new dress with sparkling yellow embellishments.
Nothing gives them greater delight than watching the young ones in the ‘Onakkodi’ playing about. Children in new clothes lighting the lamps is a very delightful sight that radiates the atmosphere.
It is equally joyful for grandparents and elderly parents to receive new dress from their children on the occasion. This gesture of deep-felt gratitude evokes a flood of memories in the parents and the progeny alike. Family life may be today under greater strain than ever before. But family still remains the nationâ’s core institution.
Receiving ‘Onapudava’ from one’s husband is a reaffirmation of love which always enthuses a wife and makes her even rapturous.
A ‘pudava’ gifted by the spouse motivates her to take all the responsibilities on herself for Onam celebrations. For the newly-weds, the first Onam is an occasion of plentitude in terms of gifts received by them and the love showered on them.
It is customary for parents to bring loads of culinary items to the households of their married daughters. This is done in the belief that it sustains and strengthens the bonds between the two families. Failure to turn up with these gifts on the eve of Onam sometimes enrages and even estranges the son-in-law’s family. Everyone now goes on a shopping spree to buy gifts and shares in the general mood of elation. As a result, shopping centres get very overcrowded. Discounts and mega sales define the moment. Buy-buy syndrome reaches an-all-time high. Women outnumber men in bazaars and markets doing hectic shopping. It is no surprise because they tend to be socially more intelligent and better at choosing gifts. However, home-made gifts are special as they are free from their commercial element and have a purity about them.
If friends happen to be devotees of Bacchus, the bottle becomes an ideal gift. For them there can be no better gift.
It is shared to cheers among the company of friends. It literally lifts the spirits and transports them to anther illusory world.
Now that prohibition is in the offing, the revelers must take care that they do not go on a drunken orgy and irreversibly damage the liver.
It is remarkable that gift givers during these Onam days do not leave the price tags on.
They do not want the value of their gifts measured in terms of their monetary worth. They do not want to reduce the giving and receiving of presents to the level of a commercial transaction.
They are so overwhelmed with altruistic sentiments that they do not swap or reciprocate gifts consciously. The aspect of gift that goes beyond the its monetary worth is what makes it a treasured possession.
Onam is an occasion when people affirm their altruism and display their finer side. Born selfish and unfair, they try to be unselfish and fair.
Many kind-hearted people reach out to people who need a caring hand in this season of goodwill. They find fulfillment in giving gifts to parentless children, inmates of poor homes, inmates of old age homes and physically and mentally differently-abled children. For them in this world there is nothing more fulfilling and rewarding than doing good deeds and lending a helping hand to the needy.
Onam also engenders solidarity when gifts are given to all those who complete our lives from doctors, domestic helps, newspaper boys, hair stylists, cattle feeders, gardeners, coconut pluckers, fisher-women, electricians and plumbers to transport facilitators.
On their part, the poor people who received some help from someone in a socially higher position seize the season as an opportunity to reciprocate the small mercies with gifts which cannot but be accepted, given the spirit of Onam.