Tuesday, December 20, 2005
The Legend of Onam
The title sorta sounds like those wierd essays we used to get during our exams in school - 'write 5 sentences about your favourite festival (with appropriate title)'. I always used to wonder - why 5, and not 3, or 7 !!
Onam is the festival celebrated in Kerala, by all and sundry, in honor of the famous demon-king Mahabali. Apparently, Mahabali was the greatest king Kerala had ever seen. What's more, he was neither a Commie nor a Congressman. So the gods got all worked up, and decided that the demon-king had got too big for his boots. They dispatched Lord Vishnu, the master of disguises, who donned his Appu-Raja makeup to become the Vamana incarnation, to get rid of the unsuspecting king.
The king welcomed the dwarfish Brahmin into his palace, and made rash promises. Vamana i.e. Lord Vishnu grabbed the opportunity with both hands, and asked for 3 footsteps of land. When the bewildered Mahabali agreed, Vamana prompty covered all of the Earth and the heavens with his first two steps (the legend goes that during the second step, Lord Brahma cleaned Vamana's foot using the brass jug, and this is how the Ganges river originated).
The king, however, was an honorable man, and he offered his own head for Vamana to claim. Vamana pushed Mahabali to the underworld (patalam) with his third step. However, Lord Vishnu must have felt an iota of compassion for the injustice being meted out to the hapless king, and hence he granted Mahabali the right to visit his beloved kingdom once every year. This day is celebrated as Onam in Kerala.
The picture above shows a typical caricature of Mahabali (or Maveli, as he is more popularly called), with the paunch and the umbrella, as looks over the prosperous (??!!) Kerala.
# posted by Ranjit Nair @ 6:27 AM 
