Onam Greetings!

Happy Onam everyone!

Hope you all had a more festive Onam than we did – thanks to my laziness. We did make the Pookalam, and the payasam is in progress – I decided to go for the easier, quicker Semiya Payasam. Daughter loves it and had specially requested for it, and I can’t deny her everything festive about Onam, can I?

Not that she minds – after all she got to do what she most wanted  – to make the pookalam. We made the Pookalam on the first two days of Onam – we were in India then, and I had promised her that we would do it here, if we have enough flowers. One look at my garden told us that we were hoping for too much. So we saved all the flowers for Thiruvonam, and this is what we made. Just a make-shift, simple pookalam, but enough to satisfy daughter.

Deeps’ post on Onam, recounting Namnam’s interest in the background to Onam, reminds me of some Maveli related stories that I keep forgetting to jot down. Daughter got interested in Onam last year. We were in Kerala, and she was fascinated by everything. Most of all by Maveli. All she wanted was for Maveli to come home and meet her. Finally her wish came true(well, partially), when she met Maveli at a shop, when we were out shopping. I actually thought she would be terrified, but she was just delighted.

This year, she has been analyzing the story, and is not too pleased with it. Surely, it was sneaky of Lord Vishnu to do something like this to Mahabali. After all he was a wonderful king. Why did Lord Vishnu do it? If Asuras were bad people, how come Mahabali was good? And other important issues like how did Mahabali get pushed into Patala? Was there a hole in the earth ? And more importantly, how does he come out every year? Does the earth open up?

Can someone please help me with these questions?

So wishing you all a very Happy Onam, and hoping that Maveli visits you, in one form or the other 🙂