Onam meant a lot more in the past by way of celebrations and festivities than it does today. In the early 1940s, growing up in Satelmond Palace (in Kerala) with my grandmother, Maharani Sethu Lakshmi Bayi, Onam was an unforgettable experience, as were most of the festivals of those days. Onam meant wonderful decorations of flowers of all shapes and colours and meeting relatives whom we hadn’t seen for a while. Onam was not just confined to four days, as it is often today, but a whole 10 days.
My grandmother was unforgettable, regal and beautiful in her methukkettu, directing the festivities. Onam began with an elaborate bath in the exclusive palace pool and bath house with other close female family members, with oils, herbs and fragrant bathing materials, while the male members had a separate pool for themselves. There were maids and attendants who assisted. Everyone wore new clothes and ornaments and assembled to partake of the delicious meals that followed. Numerous snacks and delicacies were prepared other than the main dishes.
An enormous circular platform with a large structure in the centre like a shivaling was made with clay outside, in the centre of the compound and completely covered with decorations of flowers. This was the Thrikkaakkara Appan, a symbol of prosperity for the whole year. The flowers were changed every day for 10 days. The kitchens, of which there were three, ruled by 12 cooks, were busy from the previous week, getting ready for the huge spread on all ten days of Onam.
On Thiruvonam day, we sat before plantain leaves and were served 64 food items! This included three different payasams and two delicious digestives, one with curd and the other with tamarind. After 1954, we spent Onam in Bengaluru, because we had established our home here, and from then on the number of eatables was reduced by half! But the 10 days of rejoicing and festivities remained the same. A Thrikkaakkara Appan was made in the compound amidst much excitement.
Those were school and college days in Bengaluru, and my mother – Princess Uthram Thirunal Lalithamba Bayi – was the queen of the festivities. She made everything much more informal. However, Onam in the palace and Onam at home in Bengaluru were both memorable in their own ways. A storybook fairytale experience in the palace, with footmen, maids and guards, and a totally different atmosphere in Bengaluru – both had one thing in common – the excitement, the joyous abandon, the company and camaraderie of friends and relatives. One important thing about Onam that never changed was the swing and the ball games! The swing was an essential part of the celebrations and everyone from children to adults to elders had a go at it.
Onam was not a religious festival. It was an effort to attract good fortune and plentitude in the coming years, basically a celebration for a successful harvest. It therefore brought everyone, from all walks of life, together in spirit without differences or clashes of communal ideologies. It was pure enjoyment.
This year, though the lavishness of the past is no longer present, the spirit of Onam will remain, as always, without dissent or enmity or negative elements of any kind - a celebration of the pure joy of living.