Kerala has a king who comes home once a year. He was sent away long ago by a god, and the god was right to send him, and the people loved him anyway. So on Thiruvonam day, in the month of Chingam, usually late August or early September, every house in Kerala sweeps its courtyard, lays flowers at the door, puts on new clothes and cooks a feast, so that when Mahabali comes to see how his people are faring he will find them as happy as he left them.
This is Onam, the largest festival of the Malayalam calendar. It is a harvest festival, ten days of games, boat races, dances and feasts, and a story about losing gracefully. It is kept by Hindus, Christians and Muslims alike, and by Malayalis in every country where they have settled.
Mahabali and the three steps
The story is told in the Bhagavata Purana. Mahabali, or Maveli as Malayalis call him, was an asura, one of the race usually opposed to the gods, and the grandson of Prahlada, the boy-devotee of Vishnu. Unlike most of his kind he was righteous and devout, and his rule was a golden age: no theft, no lies, no sorrow. The Onam song every Malayali child learns begins with it:
Maveli nadu vaneedum kalam
manusharellarum onnu pole.
When Maveli ruled the land,
all the people were as one.
His goodness made him powerful, and his power alarmed the gods, whom his armies had driven from heaven. Vishnu took birth as Vamana, a dwarf Brahmin boy, and came to Bali during a great sacrifice to ask for a gift: only as much land as he could cover in three steps. His teacher Shukracharya saw who the boy was and warned him, but Bali held that a promise made at a sacrifice could not be withdrawn, and poured the water of the gift over Vamana's hand.
The dwarf grew. With one step he covered the earth, with the second the heavens, and there was nowhere left for the third. Bali bowed and offered his own head. Vamana placed his foot upon it and sent him down to the netherworld of Sutala, but Bali had passed a test the gods themselves had failed. Vishnu granted that Bali would rule in Sutala with Vishnu himself as his doorkeeper, and that once a year he could return to visit the land and the people he loved. That visit is Onam.
Why Kerala remembers a defeat with love
Elsewhere this is a story about the humbling of pride. In Kerala it is a story about a good king. Malayalis do not deny that Vamana was Vishnu; Thrikkakara temple near Kochi, where the festival is centred, is a temple to Vamana, and the clay pyramids set in the flower carpet on the last days, the Onathappan, are identified by some with Vamana and by others with Mahabali. What Kerala refuses to do is remember Bali as a villain. He kept his word when keeping it cost him everything, and that is why, the tradition says, the god who took his kingdom became his gatekeeper. The festival is a people's annual reassurance to their king: we are well, come and see.
Ten days from Atham
Onam begins on the day of the Atham star and ends on Thiruvonam, the tenth day, each day named for the star that rules it. From Atham, the pookalam begins. This is the flower carpet laid on the ground in front of the house each morning. On Atham it is a single ring of yellow flowers; each day a ring is added, until on Thiruvonam it may be a metre across, with ten rings of hibiscus, ixora, marigold and the white thumba that grows wild in every yard. Children gather flowers before dawn; in the towns they are bought by the kilo.
Uthradam, the ninth day, is for frantic shopping and cooking; Thiruvonam is the main day, and the celebrations spill on for two more, Avittom and Chathayam.
The sadhya
The feast, the sadhya, is the centre of Thiruvonam. It is vegetarian, eaten by hand, sitting on the floor, from a fresh banana leaf laid with its narrow end pointing to the diner's left. A full sadhya runs to twenty or more dishes, each with its place on the leaf and its turn.
The top half is laid first, left to right: salt, pickles of lime and mango, the sweet-sour ginger inji curry, upperi (banana chips) and sharkara varatti (chips in jaggery), then the side dishes. These include thoran, dry vegetables with coconut; avial, mixed vegetables in coconut and curd; olan, gourd and beans in coconut milk; kalan and erissery, thicker gravies of yam and pumpkin; and the curd-based pachadi and kichadi. A pappadam goes at the edge.
Then the rice, in the lower half, and with it, in order: parippu, plain lentils with a spoon of ghee; sambar; pulissery, a thin curd curry; and rasam. Then the payasam, usually a jaggery pradhaman and a milk palada. It ends with rice and moru, buttermilk. Servers move down the row with buckets and ladles, and the only acceptable way to refuse a second helping is to cover the leaf with your hand.
The Malayalam proverb kanam vittum Onam unnanam says one should eat the Onam feast even if one has to sell one's land for it. No one takes it literally, and everyone understands it.
Boats, tigers and the dancing circle
The Vallam Kali, the boat race, is Onam's great spectacle. The chundan vallam, snake boat, is over thirty metres long with a raised stern like a cobra's hood, rowed by a hundred men to the rhythm of the vanchipattu, the boatmen's songs. The Aranmula race on the Pamba river is a temple ritual as much as a contest; the Nehru Trophy at Punnamada Lake in Alappuzha, instituted after Jawaharlal Nehru's visit in 1952, is the competitive one.
In Thrissur on the fourth day after Thiruvonam, Pulikali takes over the streets: men painted head to toe as tigers, with masks and padded bellies, dancing to drums while costumed hunters chase them. The painting takes all night.
Quieter and older is Thiruvathira kali, also called Kaikottikali, the women's dance. In cream and gold kasavu saris they circle a lit brass lamp, clapping and singing, in a form that is both folk dance and devotion to Parvati. Beside these are swings, the games called Onakkalikal, and in north Kerala the Onappottan, a masked figure who visits houses in Mahabali's name.
A festival for everyone, everywhere
Onakkodi, the new clothes given at Onam, are the other half of the day. Elders give them to the young; the traditional gift is the mundu, the white cloth with a gold border, or the matching kasavu sari. A Malayali in new white and gold on Thiruvonam morning is dressed for the king's visit.
Onam is the state festival of Kerala and is kept across the religions. Christian and Muslim families lay pookalams and sit down to the sadhya as readily as Hindu ones, and the public events belong to the whole state. Its timing explains part of this. Chingam follows Karkidakam, the hungriest month of the monsoon, and Onam marks the first harvest after the rain. Everyone was hungry; everyone has reason to feast. The rest is Mahabali himself, a king who ruled over a people who were as one.
Onam travels with Malayalis. In the Gulf, in London, Melbourne and New Jersey, Malayali associations hire halls for the nearest weekend, cater a sadhya on banana leaves flown in, or on plates, and lay a pookalam with whatever flowers the florist has. Children who have never seen a snake boat perform Thiruvathira in hired kasavu. The feast is sometimes smaller and the flowers are often the wrong ones, but the king, it is understood, is not fussy about where his people are, only about whether they are well.
Celebrating at home
Lay a small pookalam at the door on Atham and add a ring each morning until Thiruvonam; a few blooms from the garden are enough. Wear something new and, if you have it, white with gold. Cook even a short sadhya: rice, parippu with ghee, sambar, a thoran, a pachadi, pappadam and a payasam, on a banana leaf if you can find one. Tell the children the story of the three steps and ask them what they think of Bali's choice. And before you eat, do as Kerala does: make sure the house looks like a place where everyone is happy, in case the king drops by.