Spirit of Onam

Techies’ impressions of Onam on campus and outside

August 28, 2014 05:48 pm | Updated 05:48 pm IST - Thiruvananthapuram

Onam has always been big in Technopark and this year it’s no different. A couple of days ago, one MNC sent out a circular to its employees, explaining the significance of the annual harvest festival and urging them to spare some time for traditional feasts and games that the company is arranging on their behalf.

As if they needed reminding. With just a week left for Onam, we hear that Technopark is already in festive mode. Several companies have set their own dates for King Mahabali’s arrival, complete with sadyas, pookkalam contests, pulikali, Thiruvathirakali, aarppuvili, chenda melam and the likes, prior to the extended holiday weekend. Onam fairs and sales are on or will shortly get underway in the atriums of some of the buildings on campus.

“Onam on campus is fun,” says Shijith Lal, a test lead with an MNC. “Every year, most companies reserve a day or two days to celebrate Onam. There will be a pookkalam contest, for which almost everyone participates, a Mahabali cherry picked from among the employees, who will come to view the floral carpets and interact with us, dress code relaxation on the day, where we get to wear shirt-mundu or set saris, an elaborate sadya with payasam, and as much sarkaravaratti and banana chips as we want…,” he explains.

“The camaraderie in the air for Onam has to be seen to be believed. Everyone gets into the spirit of things – even colleagues from other states and visiting foreign clients. The celebrations are as big as they are elaborate. In fact, Onam in Technopark is like its nowhere else in Kerala,” adds techie Arya P.

Anand Kumar, a business development manager, is also relishing the opportunity to celebrate Onam on campus. “I went to a residential school, where we didn’t have holidays for Onam. But we would go out into the countryside and pluck flowers and make elaborate pookkalams on the day, and sing and dance. We would be joined by our classmates from across India.

“Then, when I started working in Bangalore and later Dubai, again I didn’t have much opportunity to celebrate Onam, save for a few sadyas, organised by friends. And that too, almost never on Thiruvonam, but on mutually convenient weekends before or after. Then again, Onam in my home town, Kozhikode, is not as elaborate a celebration as Vishu, so festivities at home are usually limited to a sadya. I have really enjoyed Onam in the two years that I have been in Technopark and I am looking forward to this year’s celebrations as well.”

While they say that Technopark’s efforts at celebrating Onam are “admirable”, some techies can’t but chaff at the “artificiality” of the celebrations. “Onam has become commercialised, corporatised and technology-driven. That famed sense of brotherhood and equality that [as legend goes] Mahabali comes back to see every year is fast fading in Kerala. It has become all about showcasing your latest buys, in the guise of ‘Onakkodi’. I know many people who have not even got leave for Onam because there is some project due or the other,” says techie Dipin M. Varghese, a native of Ernakulam. “Onam of my childhood was a community affair where everyone used to take part in traditional games organised by the local clubs,” he says, a tad wistfully.

It’s this nostalgia for the good old days, we understand, that is the primary reason behind the sentiment, particularly among the seniors in group. Hari Chandra Shekar, senior director with an MNC, “a child of the 70s”, says: “When I was growing up in the city, I was fortunate to have had some amazing Onams. We were a joint family and with my grandmother leading the way, we followed all the Onam traditions religiously, starting with sanctifying the house top to bottom, putting pookkalams, organising games and so on.

“Onam these days is a bit diluted. From a harvest fete it has become a sale fete; instead of a time for enjoyment, it is a time to showcase. Even the sadya has become commercialised. My wife and I are trying to give our children at least some of the same Onam memories, by taking them to her native place in Kuttanad. We’re planning to shut off the television at least on that day.”

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