KOCHI: More than a celebration, Onam is an emotion for every Malayali. The festival, which otherwise would have had extensive celebrations with families getting together and large feasts, did not have its usual pomp and glory this time. People met online, laughed and shared wishes online.Adding to the festive mood this year, a bunch of artists with Varakkoottam, a club by Prathidhwani, a welfare organisation for IT employees of Technopark, came up with a unique initiative.
They released ‘Ormayile Onam’ (Onam in memories), a video that compiled illustrations based on the festival. From the famous athapookkalam with ‘thrikkakara appan’ (a clay structure depicting Lord Vamana) to sadya and boat race, the artists Bipin M K, Vishwadas, Vinod S Pillai, Mittu Bose and Vishakh Krishnan managed to bring back all the vibrant memories of Onam through their strokes.
Varakkoottam, which was born last year, has over 200 art enthusiasts who belong to the IT sector. “Every Sunday, we would meet up at different locations in Kochi and draw the landscapes, which would then be exhibited. However, since the outbreak of coronavirus, our meetups were cancelled. So we started doing it online with a programme called ‘virtual visit to a spot’. Since it was Onam, we wanted to do something special. That’s how the idea of ‘Ormayile Onam’ came up,” says Bipin, one of the artists and an employee of TCS, Kochi.
It was not easy for the five of them to pull this off, as they had to find extra time for drawing after their usual work-from-home hours. Though it was a draining experience, their passion for drawing kept them going. The whole work took over 20 days to complete and was done entirely digitally. Video editing was done by Pyarelal Malayil, one of the members of Prathidhwani.
Joint secretary of Prathidhwani Binoy Xavier, who coordinated the programme, said artists were not well-versed with digital drawing, which was a challenge. “However, all of them learnt it during the course of the project. All the artists had their own style of drawing. Executing a uniform style for the video was achieved through team work,” he said. Further, Varakkoottam is planning to come up with an elaborate work on the history of Kerala on the occasion of Kerala Piravi on November 1. ‘Ormayile Onam’ can be watched on YouTube.