Ironies of Onam.

The ironies of Onam. Now ,Onam is more of consumer shopping festival , rather than a harvest festival. There is hardly any substantive agriculture. There is no more harvest. The cash crop are in shambles . From an agrarian society, it moved to a service society driven by remittance. Hence, it is all about market festival. And Onam is now more of a 'reality show' in TV studios with 'set mundu' , malayali 'manka' steriotypes and everyone will be in 'fancy dress' to prove their Malayaly identity . There is no harm in any of these things- as now all festivals are primarily facilitated by the market- and all festivals are shopping festivals. And even election is taken over by the event management companies. And Onam too is managed by event management companies in the companies .

Onam often is more vigorously celebrated by the non-resident keralites than those in Kerala. Because for NRKs Onam is their umbilical chord to their primary identity. When you are outside your own primary identity, you feel more vulnerable and hence you need something to cling on to prove your 'mal' connection. So in Oslo we all used to have the malayaly fancy dress competition to prove that 'once up on a time' we too were actually Malayalies, though most of them don't speak Malaylam.

Vegetables and rice will have to come from the neighboring state, Tamil Nadu or elsewhere. In a nuclear or post-nuclear society, no one has time to prepare the feast. So even the feast is ordered from the restaurant.
In a post nuclear family setting, most of the people are in different locations. And many are travelling enjoy the vacation. Our family too is in different locations and countries during this Onam.

Onam for me simply childhood nostalgia of organic life ,woven around farming families and stories of nostalgia or 'good old times'.. So remembering childhood nostalgia of a harvest festival in my village. There used to be agriculture and harvest. There used to be real organic songs. There used to be feast prepared from the rice you cultivated and the vegetable and banana that grew in our backyard. Onam was organic.

Now Onam is synthetic show off. Maveli is in shopping malls as there is not many farming families. It is a shopping festival and hence Onam is more in TV studios or TV shows. Onam is more of fancy dress mela of the dress malayalies usually don't wear.

But Onam is a part of our collective memories of our people- the Malayalam speech community. It is a part of our collective memories of farms and harvest, though now it is more of a ' Reality show'
My life too is woven within the larger collective memories of Malayali. My primary and foremost identity is that of a happy Malyalayi.

Hence, wish you all a very happy Onam from a happy Malayali, who is an insider-outsider, living in villages, cities and countries at the same time. Thinking of Maveli malayalies and signing off from Manassar, Haryana.

ഓണം ഒരേ സമയം ഒരു ഓർമ്മപ്പെടുത്തലും ആദർശ, പ്രത്യാശ സ്വപ്നങ്ങളുമാണ്. അത് ഭൂമിയുടെ ജീവനെ കുറിച്ചും, പുല്ലുകളും മരങ്ങളും മനുഷ്യരും, മണ്ണും മനുഷ്യന്റെ തലോടലിൽ പൂത്തു ഫലമാകുന്ന ഉത്സവ സദ്യയാണ്. അത് പാതാളത്തിലേക്കു ഇപ്പോഴും ചവിട്ടി താഴ്ത്തി കൊണ്ടിരിക്കുന്ന മനുഷ്യ നന്മയുടെയും, കീഴാള, പാർശ്വവൽക്കരിച്ച മനുഷ്യരുടെ കേൾക്കാത്ത ശബ്ദങ്ങളുടെ ആരവം ആണ്. എല്ലാവര്ക്കും നല്ല ഓണ ഓർമ്മകൾ നേരുന്നു. ഒരു നേരം പോലും ഉണ്ണാൻ അവസരമില്ലാത്ത ഇന്ത്യയിലെ ജനകോടികളെ ഓർമ്മിച്ചു നമുക്ക് ഓണം ഉണ്ണാം.
ഓർമ്മകൾ ഉണ്ടാകണം, ആ പഴയ പാട്ടു.

" മാവേലി നാട് വാണീടും കാലം
മനുഷ്യരെല്ലാരും ഒന്നു പോലെ ... ആമോദത്തോടെ വസിക്കും കാലം ആപത്തെങ്ങാർക്കും ഒട്ടില്ല താനും
ജാതിയുമില്ലാ മതവുമില്ല,
എള്ളോളമില്ലാ പൊളിവചനം....."

ആശയും, പ്രത്യാശയും, ഓർമ്മകളും, സ്വപ്നങ്ങളും ആണ് നമ്മളെ മനുഷ്യരാക്കുന്നതു. ഓണം നന്മയുള്ള മനുഷ്യരുടെ പൂക്കാലമാകട്ടെ.