HAPPY ONAM!
Part-1
 |
| Image Courtesy: D .K |
By ‘land and courtyard’, I mean the way we used to occupy
ourselves during this festival. Kinds running around in fields surrounding the
household for flowers and spreading floral carpet on the courtyard are a few of
those memories. It was great fun in the country than in the city back then. Onam
was mostly an occasion for getting together with family and relatives, during
my childhood.
 |
| Image Courtesy: Google |
Unlike the Wikipedia article on Onam, the celebration does not
have much to do with a specific religious practice with the way things are in
the above drawn memory picture. Or should I say the way things “were”? Onam has
a pan religious appeal. In order to explicate that I would like to tell you
what I have seen recently in a church. In a place named Mattannur, about 20 km
away from Chalode, my place, we have a Catholic church. The previous week, they
announced that they will make an Onam floral carpet as part of the
celebrations. I went there the previous Tuesday evening and found a beautiful
floral carpet on the church floor, close to the bottom of the pattern of cross
that adores the holy ground. The peculiarity of this church is that it does not
have fixed pews. The chairs are all movable.
The Wikipedia article I mentioned registers that Onam is a Hindu
festival. Perhaps, Wikipedia has its own political views and agendas. However,
if such a politics is palpable, it is not independent of what appears to exist
in actuality.
To be contd.
To be contd.
Comments