Onam, my favorite time of the year! If you have no clue of what I am talking about, it is a harvest festival that is celebrated in Kerala, the southern Indian state. More about it here.
Wishing you all a Happy Onam and a prosperous year ahead!
As you can see, this year too we welcomed Onam with pookalams or floral designs that grew larger with each day. We started out with just one color/type of flower, which increased to 2, 3, 4…..so on, till the 9th day when the pookalam was the largest.
I’m so glad and thankful that my kids shared the same level of enthusiasm and were troopers when it came to designing the pookalams, which they had to before they went to camp /school.
As promised here is a round up of all the designs this year, starting with the first 4 days.
I even tried to sneak in a paisley in one of them. 😉 Interestingly this year Onam was only for 9 days instead of the usual 10. So only 8 pookalams this year. 🙁
For the 10th day, people in some parts of the state celebrate with an even bigger pookalam. But in my neck of the woods, we just make some offerings to Mahabali which is mostly a symbolic for saying, ‘you are welcome in our home’.
Those pyramid like things are called Thrikkakarappan, which again is symbolic of the God that granted King Mahabali’s last wish to visit his people during Onam. Do they look familiar? You might have noticed them on my floating shelves in the family room. I love the straight lines, the shape, and the story behind them. So they live the glamorous life of a decor accessory for the rest of the year. 🙂
Now that all the buzz has slowed down, I’m kinda feeling empty. I guess it is almost like the after Christmas feeling. Anyways, I’m super happy that I managed to put all the pookalams with flowers from my garden. Yup, all those pretty flowers came from my humble garden!
Which pookalam/floral design did you like the best?
7th day and third day. ..
You know, I’m biased to the paisley. 🙂
Vidya,
Amazing!! Great Job, for celebrating this festival on the other side of the globe. My favs are the last three.
Thank you Sree!
Such awesome pookalams, Vidya…loved the seventh and eighth ones and the paisley is super cute.
Best,
Amu
Thanks Amu. Paisley though simple is my fav. 🙂
am just sitting…staring at these…
Here in Kerala, pookalam is becoming more of a ‘competition’… who made the better one,who spent most on flowers etc… I remember going around the campus with my brother plucking wild flowers for the pookalam while we were outside kerala. now i have settled here and onam means ‘shopping’ for flowers 🙁
am so so so impressed by your pookalams.. at home we have the same tradition..of small kalams giving way to bigger ones,but in malabar we make the biggest one on tiruvonam
cant help repeating….so once again..am mighty impressed
Suja,
Thank you so much! I too get the same sense when I see things on the news. All the ‘home’ pookalams look very professional and seem to use store bought flowers. Feel that it kinda takes away a lot of the fun. Plus it is really not that tough to grow your own flowers especially in a tropical place like Kerala. But I’m really glad that so many people still make an effort to put the pookalam at least on Thiruvonam day. Got to appreciate that they are keeping some of the traditions alive albeit in a new way.:)
I grew up in Mahe and Biju is from Kozhikode. They too put the largest pookalam for the Thiruvonam day.
Hope to see you around more.
Vidya