Onam : The National festival of Kerala

ONAM, OUR harvest festival, is round the corner. It comes in the month of "Chingam" according to our calendar. The festivity begins ten days before Thiruonam, by putting floral decorations (Pookkalam) on every home. Every day, fresh flowers are used to make fresh patterns, whose elaborate structures grow increasingly grand as Big Day draws near. Even the moss growing on the monsoon-soaked, laterite walls is used as a finishing touch. Indeed, there are contests as to who makes the best pookalams.

This festival is celebrated by All Malayalees with much enthusiasm both within and outside Kerala, is a symbol of plenty. This is when the rice has been harvested, and markets saturated with vegetables of all kinds. People get themselves new clothes and the smell of the legendary banana chips, both savoury and sweetened with jaggery, hangs in the air. People buy themselves new clothes, and, in today's consumerist Kerala, jewellery and white goods.

In my childhood, on these Onam days we were always busy with plucking flowers from the fields. But now in this modern life people are buying the flowers from the market. This is become the biggest business season for the flowers in Kerala. Lots and lots of flowers are reaching from the other states...

Today Life is became fast and no one has enough time to do their work...but ONAM always makes a special feeling in the mind of all malayalees and bring colorful thoughts and fills our mind. Honestly says, I can't describe that great feeling in words.... :)