Take an extra long bath, put on your prettiest mundum neriyathum, look forward to some Kaikottakali and smile brightly– Mahabali is coming home, and we don’t want him to know we are forlorn without him.
What’s that you say? You have no idea what I’m talking about? Fret not, almost no one ever does. The tale of Onam and Kerala’s most beloved King is available for your edification, below.
The story goes that the beautiful state of Kerala was once ruled by an Asura (demon) king, Mahabali. The King was greatly respected in his kingdom and was considered to be wise, judicious and extremely generous. It is said that Kerala witnessed its golden era in the reign of King Mahabali. Everybody was happy in the kingdom, there was no discrimination on the basis of caste or class. Rich and poor were equally treated. There was neither crime, nor corruption. People did not even lock their doors, as there were no thieves in that kingdom. There was no poverty, sorrow or disease in the reign of King Mahabali and everybody was happy and content.
It may be noted Mahabali was the son of Veerochana and grandson of Prahlad, the devout son of demon King Hiranyakashyap. Mahabali had a son called Bana, who became a legendary king in his own right and became popular as Banraj in central Assam. Mahabali belonged to the Asura (demon) dynasty but was an ardent worshiper of Lord Vishnu. His bravery and strength of character earned him the title of “Mahabali Chakravathy” or Mahabali – the King of Kings.
Looking at the growing popularity and fame of King Mahabali, Gods became extremely concerned and jealous. They felt threatened about their own supremacy and began to think of a strategy to get rid of the dilemma.
It was said Mahabali was very generous and charitable. Whenever anybody approached him for help or requested for anything he always granted. To test the King, Lord Vishnu disguised himself as a dwarf and a poor Brahmin called Vamana. He came to the Kingdom of Mahabali, just after Mahabali performed his morning prayers and was preparing to grant boons to Brahmins.
Disguised as Vamana, Vishnu said he was a poor Brahmin and asked for a piece of land. The generous King said, he could have as much land as he wanted. The Brahmin said that he just wanted as much land as could be covered by his three steps. The King was surprised to hear but agreed.
A learned adviser of the King, Shukracharya sensed that Vamana was not an ordinary person and warned the King against making the promise. But, the generous King replied that it would be a sin for a King to back on his words and asked the Brahmin to take the land. The King could not imagine that the dwarf Brahmin was Lord Vishnu himself.
Just as King Mahabali agreed to grant the land, Vamana began to expand and eventually increased himself to the size of cosmic proportions. With his first step the Brahmin boy covered the whole of earth and with the other step he covered the whole of the skies. He then asked King Mahabali where is the space for him to keep his third foot.
The King realised that he was no ordinary Brahmin and his third step will destroy the earth. Mahabali with folded hands bowed before Vamana and asked him to place his last step on his head so that he could keep the promise. The Brahmin placed his foot on the head of the King, which pushed him to patala, the nether world. There the King requested the Brahmin to reveal his true identity. Lord Vishnu then appeared before the King in his person. The Lord told the King that he came to test him and the King won the test. King Mahabali was pleased to see his lord. Lord Vishnu also granted a boon to the King.
The King was so much attached with his Kingdom and people that he requested that he be allowed to visit Kerala once in a year. Lord Vishnu was moved by the Kings nobility and was pleased to grant the wish. He also blessed the King and said even after losing all his worldly possessions, the King would always be loved by Lord Vishnu and his people.
It is the day of the visit of King Mahabali to Kerala that is celebrated as Onam every year. The festival is celebrated as a tribute to the sacrifice of King Mahabali. Every year people make elaborate preparations to welcome their King whom they affectionately call Onathappan. They wish to please the spirit of their King by depicting that his people are happy and wish him well. [link]
I love that story. Whenever I hear or read it, I am thrilled that I was born a Malayalee. Since I’ve never seen a “proper” Onam, I’m thinking about going to Kerala next year (first visit since ’89!), to witness the fabulosity up-close– who’s in? Everyone should see Vellamkali once during their life, right? Chingam 2008: meetup in Alleppey, a.k.a. The “Venice” of the East, y’all! 😉
How serendipitous, I just watched something on this via the History Channel (or similar)…
Onam is a grand festival, but reminds me of a miserable child hood, so really don’t care too much for it. Maybe because I live in a land farway without any extended family. I know that I would really get into it if I were in Kerala or even Bhopal or baroda where I have a lot of kins. I know that I am depriving my kids of something special, not exposing them to the grandeur of Onam and other desi celebrations but I can’t get into something which I did not enjoy growing up. To make up for those shortcomings, I treat them nice everyday… ( “World’s best Dad” award, six years in a row, on father’s day……can’t beat that… can ya?).
As a matter of fact all special days and celebrations makes me feel like hiding under my bed and coming out only the next day when things are back to normal.
Howzzatt for a downer……Score!!
I was judged by a lot of well-intentioned Christians (they were simply telling me what they were taught)
Garbage in, garbage out.
translation please?
Oh and Anna, I’m sincerely sorry your feelings have been hurt on here. I know what it feels like to have your feelings hurt (intentionally or by way of ignorant ‘fly-away’ comments) and I’m sorry you’ve been on the receiving end of it here.
“Don’t worry, infant!”.
Unless Anna was going for “baby” or maybe “babe”.
Kavalai padathae, kozhandai – worry don’t kid ?
thx.
Anna:
I love you. Marry me. Keep doing what you do. It’s great – the love and the passion! I am a Hindu – and if some of these jerks understand Hinduism, it is a very catholic religion – small ‘c’.
do people in kerela conciously think of this as a “harvest festaval”, or is it just a “festaval”?
OY! I go through the great trouble of harassing someone via IM to find out how to say “Don’t worry” in Tamizh and this is the thanks I get! Harrumph. 😉
Everyone else, thanks for the kind words. I’m okay, really. None of you have made the hurtful comments about Christians that I was referring to and I knew, coming in to this endeavor, that I would be writing for a few hundred people who probably had awful experiences with “my kind”, thanks to thoughtless fundies telling you how you were going to burn in hell and whatnot. At first I found this epiphany daunting, then I realized it was an opportunity to show mutineers a different aspect of Christianity, and an authentically desi one at that, since my respect for other religions was taught to me by my very Mallu, very Orthodox Christian father. Coconut Oil is right…all people in Kerala celebrate Onam.
HMF said:
That’s not fair. Some of those people had incredibly good hearts and were telling me things out of a pure and genuine concern for me as a person. That’s why I used the term well-intentioned–we’re all in this world (especially as children) living life the best we know how or are taught how. Now that I’m older, I’ve realized that it does not help me to judge anyone else on their beliefs, even if they don’t do the same for me. I can only move about secure in my own and respect everyone’s right to theirs.
And I think the bottom line here is (and as Anna has attested to countlessly), most Christians in this world do not condemn the rest of the world. It is a few that give the majority a bad name.
All though i love the festival being a malayalee myself, I’m not a big fan of the backstory as the Machiavellian manipulations of the Devas and Vishnu’s undertaking of their request considerably confused and traumatised my young mind as to why a good human soul was banished because he was the very personification of nobility ?
sorry. i could never do tranliteration. if someone speaks i can understand. even, for example having “Tamizh”. “zh?” huh? who invesnted these spellings anyways?
Might depend on how agricultural they are. Nearly every festival in India that started as a harvest festival (Onam/Pongal/Baisakhi/whatever else) is just celebrated as a festival in the cities. It may be a major festival, some people may go for a harvest decoration motif, but it’s often just another festival, not harvest-specific.
is this malayalam? b/c i can’t recognize the words at all … but i’m no good at reading some of these transliterations (sp?) anyway …
can someone breakdown the transliterations a bit further if it is malayalam
Sorry…
Some of those people had incredibly good hearts and were telling me things out of a pure and genuine concern for me as a person.
That’s exactly my point. I spent a number of years in the midwest, having half the town reminding what I needed to do to avoid being eternally barbecued in the afterlife. But they were saying this out of “pure and genuine” concern. The “garbage” refers to what they’re taught, not what kind of people they are.
most Christians in this world do not condemn the rest of the world
Fair enough. but do most Christians in the world condemn those Christians that do condemn the world?
My Tamil (Tamizh?) teacher spent a week on that letter (if this works, it’s à®´). I’ve also seen it transliterated as ‘dh’, ‘rl’ and ‘lh’. Here’s his explanation:
there is a retroflex frictionless continuent ழ௠(as in America; though note that Tamil does not have the lip rounding present in ‘America’). The flapped r is produced by a tap on the alveolar part of the mouth with the tip of the tongue; the trilled r on the ohter hand is produced with a vibration of the tip of the tongue on the alveolar region of the mouth; and the retroflex frictionless continuent sound (à®´à¯) is produced by sliding the tongue from the middle of the mouth through the upper palate.
And if you click on the link, there’s an audio button as well. Apparently that letter is unique to Tamil.
/geekiness
how would you say this in malayalam?
re tamizh/zh – since the sound doesn’t come close to anything in the english language, i guess zh is as good as any transliteration?
i dont even understand 1/4th of the words you just used. damn im smooth.
and..apparently my community speaks a mix of sanskritized kannada, and midieval tamil.
a aaaa. i iiiiii. u. uuuuuu….blech. never mind.
Coconut Oil,
I think that in spirit, Hinduism is fairly inclusive. — Okay, well, it’s tendency to incorporate other religions like Buddhism et all could either be seen as a very smart strategy to remain culturally relevant and dominant, or as a very accepting and ‘willing to adapt to people’ type of thing, but that’s a whole ‘nother discussion. — The texts I think were particularly designed to be contradictory so people would know that they are meant to interpret it themselves and use the texts as a symbolic guide. That’s something I really appreciate about Hinduism. It allows people like me, who are not religious but like the philosophical idea-hashing or the cultural aspects, to participate without feeling like we need to adhere to a strict code.
But in practice, I think Hindus have definitely used the religion to become fundamentalists when it served their political purposes to do so. I think that is less textually supported than in other religions, but how many people rioting in Gujarat or Ayodhya had actually read the Mahabharat? I’m not saying the BJP is representative of all Hindus, but damn have they wielded a lot of power at times and been able to manipulate the political climate towards Hindu fundamentalism.
Your description of the holiday makes me happy — I’m glad there are holidays like this around to keep us mixin and celebrating things together.
Forgive my ignorance, what is this MT that you talk about? some thread I missed? I think you do a great job in posting this blog and sure you are the most active writer here. There might be a variety of reasons for some one to post hateful comments (can post anonymous can be a factor). Whatever it might be, try not to let it affect you. Maybe that is all their real intend is. So my suggestion: Ignore hate comments. (smiling smiley)
It’s Tamil (or Tamizh), as Anna mentioned above. The zh in kozhandai is the retroflex approximant, which is also the “r” in Uluru. As to why the retroflex approximant is represented by “zh”, it’s arbitrary but at least not ambiguous like “l” or “r”, each of which does double duty anyway.
Don’t worry, me neither. But wait, there’s a chart! It’s all to do with where your tongue is hitting the roof of your mouth.
he he. i learned way too much about retroflexive, glottal etc when i took hindi and tamil. sarah, thanks for the in-depth explanation. fyi – malayalam also has the zh, presumably because of its split from tamil.
Here is a big punjabi style Happy ONAM to everyone!
i learned too much about the pretty grls in my class when i took hindi, and sadly not enough hindi.
HAHA. Precisely.
No, it’s Tamizhrrl. 😉
Now my spelling is going to suck…”Saara-illa”? Don’t yell at me! I stopped speaking fluently when I was four!
Puli, I think this statement might just be representative of you and languages in general.
is it that obvious?
Ak,
I know! Hindi sunane ko dil tharas jaata hai, yaar. But I really can’t take all the “Ek Hindustani nari apne pati ki seva nahin kar sake gi, to use taklif to hogi hi na,†business. (For non-hindi speakers: ‘If a Hindustani woman is unable to serve her husband, then of course it will be hard on her.”) It’s like, Z TV — how about you not tell me how to be an Indian woman, and I won’t tell you how to make better ads, okay? Banoon Mein Teri Dulhan is the worst gender-offender, for sure.
Tamil phonology
Malayalam phonology
For all you lovers of the retroflex approximant, listen to Yezhai kizhavan vaazhaipazhatholmel vazhukki vaarinDu vizhundaan (OGG audio).
yup esp. the gaaliyaans. Sometimes I just call my friends randomly and curse them in shudh hindi. I have to get the daily quota out of my system ya know
once i was walking in a mall in new jersey. i heard some kannada being spoken. made me happier than it should have.
Yes, exactly. MT = this thread on Mother Theresa
Thank you for your comment, btw. Very kind of you.
no worries, kanna – i’m not my grandmother (who, indeed, did yell at me when i was four because i was speaking better tamil than telugu). but my mother’s suggestion to your ‘problem’ is to marry a DBD mallu!
i was once in this completely useless class, but kept going to lecture to sit behind this totally dreamy guy. i got a good grade, and some eye candy, as well.
speaking of which, I took women’s studies cuz of my cindy-crawford-beauty-mark professor.
Have not had a chance to read the comments so may be repeating something. I find it wonderful that despite there being a growth of a ‘pan hindu’ identity over the years in India, local non religious and primarily Harvest festivals (even if they trace their roots to some religious incident, they are not really considered religious festivals) very specific to a particular region are still as strong such as Onam, Baisakhi, Pongal, etc. And that too when the concept of a harvest has become a lot less common than previously.
And then there is the interesting fact that different regions revere different gods despite the pan Hinduism growth, the Bengalis are so much about Pujo and the Marathis are big into Ganesh Chaturthi. Thus even these religious festivals have a high degree of culturo-regional flavor to it.
AAh, one just loves the diversity of the motherland, Anna you should definitely go to India for Onam next year – I have not seen it in Kerala, but any festival in India is so much more fun than what we do here. Happy Onam to everyone, I miss the amazing food I used to get at my favorite Mallu aunty’s place every Onam day.
Do not worry kiddo. That’s what it means. Geez people. Why do you have to take everything so literally?
I know! Def. But I’ve got my friends so well trained, now they know that if I yell “ch**tia” at someone, it means its time to run. Hell, my best friend has even picked up most of the gaalis and dishes it out herself. Sniff, I’m so proud!
Which mall?
newport center mall.
isnt “holi” also a harvest festival? Is this roughly analogous to holi for mallus?
Oh, thats in JC. no biggie, if it was short hills mall then it’d be like whoa.
sure. but, i never hear kannada or tamil. its usually hindi.
One place you are guaranteed to hear kannada/tamil and all combinatiosn therof: The Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz