Onam Festival of Kerala

Onam is a festival celebrating in Kerala. As India is a true multicultural country with lot of cultures and languages, it is also having countless numbers of festivals. Some of these are popular, where as others are just limited to the local village and districts. People are considering Onam as state festival of Kerala, as all over Kerala people are celebrating it.

Onam Legend Mahabali

Onam legend evolved from the story of a demon king who ruled Kerala. This king Mahabali had ruled Kerala before Lord Krishna's Birth. Hindus consider Lord Krishna was born around 5000 years back. Therefore, the story might have happened before 5000 years.

Lord Vishnu in the form of Vamana (Vamana avatar is one of Dasavatharam) begged 3 feet of land form King Mahabali. Once Mahabali has granted his wish, Vamana has taken his Universal form and with his 2 footsteps he measured all the universe including earth, heaven and sky. Since there was no place left for 3rd footstep of Vamana, Mahabali shown his head to Vamana to keep third footstep, as to keep up the promise he has given to Vamana. With that footstep Vamana pressed Mahabali to the world under the earth known as pathalam (Hindu mythology). However before pressing, him in to the pathalam, Lord Vishnu granted a boon to Mahabali. With that boon Mahabali is allowed to visit Kerala, once in every year. To convince the visiting king Mahabali, that the country is still prosperous as it was under his rule, Kerala people started celebrating that day as onam with lot of food and dance.

When is Onam: 2009
Onam 2009 is on Wednesday second of September. The atham star that is 10 days behind of Onam is on 24th of August. From Atham onwards the Onam pookalam will start and ends on Onam day.

Onam pookalam:-

Onam pookalam is the art works done by flowers on Onam season, in front of houses in Kerala. Every day morning people clean the floor and put fresh flowers to make pookalam. Plenty of flower were available in olden days, as the month chingam (August) is Just after the monsoon and Kerala was an agricultural state. Special Kerala flowers like thumpapoo, kakkapoo were available plenty in olden days. However, nowadays these flowers are not available. So now the creation of pookalam is greatly depends on the imported flowers from neighboring state of Tamilnadu. The price of the flowers will go up on onam season. Malayalee associations will conduct onam pookalam competitions in Kerala and abroad. We can expect lot of onam competition for onam 2009.

Onam celebrations:

In Kerala, people celebrate onam in their house. However, in outside of Kerala normaly malayalee associations will conduct onam celebrations. All this function will have lot of cultural programs like bharatnatyam, mohiniyattam, and thiruvathira kali. In the Middle East countries like UAE, Kuwait and Oman, onam celebration will be in a bigger manner. Other countries like, Singapore, USA and Australia will have bigger celebrations. Known Film stars and famous writers will attend these functions as chief guests.

Onam dance:

Thiruvathira kali is one of the main dances for onam. Group of women with 8, 10, or 12 members performs it. They will be dressed in Kerala traditional dress and dance with rhythmic steps against thiruvathira songs. Thiruvathira songs will be usually Hindu devotional songs about Lord Krishna or other gods. We can expect lot of videos of thiruvathira kali on YouTube after Onam