Travel Diary Page #73 Onam 2019

Onam and Vishu are the two festivals when you get to see almost the whole of Kerala in the traditional dresses. This year, even though we were not really celebrating we had family over and a low key Sadhya. The usual start of the day is by making a floral carpet or pookalam. We didn’t do it this year but that doesn't stop you from rating the other pookalams in the neighborhood!

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I love how sadhya is served in the plantain leaf and this is one thing I miss when I am away from Kerala. This is the one cuisine you don’t want to eat with a spoon but use hands. I never had to do them till this year but now that I am the only one home, it was my turn to help get the vegetables ready. There is a lot of tears and hard work that go into making this feast.

The preparation starts the day before, cutting and peeling all the vegetables. All the small onions cut into these small tiny pieces and green chilies into the small round-round shape. All these ginger, green chilly, and small onion chops mixed with jaggery turn into this perfect combination of sweet-spicy dish that lasts for a long time. No matter how many other dishes there are, a dash of this black Injam puli is my favourite.

And for a difference, this year, we decided to make the banana chips and other sweets instead of buying from the shops. Definitely it tasted better and by midnight everything was ready.

This year we had a few dishes only but most of the main ones were prepared the night before. And all the cutting the vegetable credit goes to me (somehow that makes me as proud as me cooking it!)

There are many types of Payasam and this year we bought this one from the famous chef Ambisami. I have heard a lot about his cooking but never really tasted anything from his kitchen. It was a palada payasam and maybe because I don’t like ghee at all, I found it to be a normal one. Delicious, yes but normal. Or maybe its just because my palate loves homemade food more.

By the time of lunch, everyone was home and was all a colourful and delicious Onam in 2019. Then there is obviously a time for pictures to go for the Onam feed of everyone’s social media. So, there was that.

And of course, the photographer gets a half-cut image as a consolation prize.

Another something about Onam is "Kummatti". This is how it used to happen when we were all kids. A group of guys used to come to each houses wearing a costume made out of grass and wearing masks that are supposed to scare the kids. And I used to get scared too sometimes. I have not seen them in recent years.

Just when I thought Kummatti never comes for Onam, we stumbled upon this on our way. This for sure is Kummati but a very refined version of it. I was happy to see it at the same time a little taken aback by how things have changed over the years.

Earlier it used to be a local area thing. The costumes were not done using a makeup artist or Maveli didn't come on an elephant. It used to be a simple event where these guys went to each house in the area and it felt more real.

Ahh times have changed and I sound like a grandma! 90's kid sighs!

It's been a couple of years I've been home for Onam and this year I am going to be in Thrissur for Pulikali and I can't wait to see how it is done this year.

[//]:# (!steemitworldmap 10.525983 lat 76.208144 long thrissur d3scr)

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