Skip to main content

Happy Onam



“Guro,” called out Maveli. 

Maveli is the asura hypocorism for the deva name Mahabali.  Kerala is advertised by the Tourism Department as “God’s Own Country.”  But the people of Kerala love asura hypocorisms.  You can’t blame the people, really.  Like their favourite King, Maveli, quite many of them have been expatriated.  Those who are not expatriated geographically (or literally, if you wish) adopt expatriation by intoxication.  And expatriates love nostalgic hypocorisms.

Kerala is the land of expatriates.  Pravasi is the most favourite word in the state.  Every pravasi is supposed to be living in bliss.   If there is any Malayali pravasi who is not living in such blissful condition, Benyamin or Mukundan will write Aadujeevitham or Pravasam in honour of the hapless pravasi’s nostalgia for God’s Own Country which is actually Maveli’s Own Country.  And Maveli was an asura, a demon.

“Prabho, My Lord,” came Maveli’s Guru, Sukracharya hearing Maveli’s call. 

Sukracharya was Maveli’s priest and guide, mentor and teacher, before the deva Vishnu came in the form of Dwarf and deceived Maveli.

Flashback

Time: Pre-historic

Scene: Maveli’s Palace in Asura’s Own Country

Enter Dwarf bearing a queer mix of boyhood innocence and godhood malice and wearing the sacred thread of Brahminhood.

Dwarf:           Your Majesty, I live far below the poverty line.  I cannot even apply for the Aadhar card without which your government will not even let me have cooking gas.  Give me just three feet of land and I’ll manage somehow.  You are the most generous king of kings, dayalu of dayalus, prema yogi and karma yogi...”

Dwarf unfolds a leather vesicle and takes out Amul butter.

Dwarf:           The best butter available in Gods’ Own Heavens, Your Majesty.

Maveli:          Thank you, aditi.  Order me, what can I do for you?  Whatever your wish, it will be granted.

Enter Sukracharya with a stunned expression and whispers something in the ear of Maveli.

Maveli:          No, Guro.  I may be a demon by hierarchy, but I am honest by cultivation.  This is Asuras’ Own Country.  I cannot go back on my word.  [To Dwarf]  Tell me, Boy, what is your wish?

Dwarf:           Just three feet of land, Your Majesty.  But I will measure it out with my own foot.  [The word foot resounds in the PA systems of Asuras’ Own Country.]

Maveli:          Only three feet of land?  Measure it out for yourself wherever you wish in Asuras’ Own Proud Country.

Sukracharya begins to pack his American Tourister bags.

Dwarf suddenly begins to grow large.  He grows so large that the sun is blacked out.  Maveli stands unfazed. 

Maveli:          You are a deva.  I am an asura.  I accept your verdict.  I shall go to the patalam, underworld.  I have nothing to give you in return.  So please condescend to take this Amul butter back and grant me a wish.

Dwarf-turned-giant: [imperiously – but accepting the Amul butter smacking his lips] What’s your wish?

Maveli:          Allow me to visit my praja once a year.

Dwarf-turned-god: Oh, only that?  Granted.

Exit god from Maveli’s Own Country with Amul butter clutched close to his heart.

Back to Present Time

Maveli:          Guro, I’m going on my annual visit to Asuras’ Own Country.

Sukracharya: You’ve never cared to listen to me, Your Majesty.  Yet it’s my duty to advise you not to go.

Maveli:          Never mind, Guro.  I don’t foresee any danger.  There are no genuine devas anymore anywhere.

Sukracharya: There are no genuine asuras either, Your Majesty.

Maveli:          That’s precisely why I have to go, Guro.  Good bye.  See you soon.

Sukracharya: Happy Onam to you, Your Majesty.





Labels

Labels:

Comments

  1. IndraniSeptember 15, 2013 at 6:41 PM

    A very happy Onam to you!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Karan SampatSeptember 15, 2013 at 6:51 PM

    A Happy Onam to you sir..!!

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousSeptember 15, 2013 at 7:32 PM

    Happy Onam to you too :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousSeptember 15, 2013 at 10:21 PM

    Happy Onam to you.. :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. EduPubSeptember 16, 2013 at 10:43 AM

    Wonderful write up. Enjoyed the way of making the old thing new to many through writing.
    Read it Here

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalSeptember 16, 2013 at 7:04 PM

      Whenever I think of Maveli and Onam, I get confused. Who were better: the devas or the asuras? And the problem is not an ancient one. That's why the ancient is tangled with the contemporary in this satire.

      Delete
  6. Anil KrishnanunniSeptember 16, 2013 at 11:30 AM

    Happy Onam Sir :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anita SabatSeptember 16, 2013 at 1:35 PM

    Amul Butter is Utterly Butterly Delicious even for the Devas & Asuras!
    But, Coconut Oil is used to preapre the yummy Onam feast, right?!!! :)
    A very Happy Onam!
    Enjoy!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalSeptember 16, 2013 at 7:06 PM

      You're right, yesterday I bought half a litre of coconut oil just for Onam's sake.

      Thanks for the greetings.

      Delete
  8. Zainab Ummer FarookSeptember 16, 2013 at 2:43 PM

    This reimagining of Mahabali's story brought a smile to my face. Well-written!

    Happy Onam :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalSeptember 16, 2013 at 7:06 PM

      I wonder what Maveli would think seeing present day Kerala which is quite the opposite of what he had created.

      Delete
  9. UnknownSeptember 16, 2013 at 2:59 PM

    happy Onam sir!

    ReplyDelete
  10. RajeshSeptember 16, 2013 at 4:56 PM

    Happy Onam.

    ReplyDelete
  11. GurujiSeptember 16, 2013 at 7:44 PM

    Didnt quite get the role of Amul butter, nevertheless, happy Onam to you. Btw, the story is simple, yet open to few philosophical interpretations - like everything else religious - one is that there is no such thing as ultimate good and bad, but the gods and their way. Second one could be a bit biblical - Mahabali as anybody else was born with 'original sin'(due to his Asura genes), but his karma made him a purer person. It can go on for a few more..but ultimately its all just myths and stories.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalSeptember 17, 2013 at 12:44 PM

      Don't take it very seriously, Santhosh. I meant it as light satire.

      Happy Onam to you too.

      Amul butter was brought in to connect thre ancient with the contemporary. After all, gods live in eternity and there should be no gap between the past and present in eternity: there cannot be past and present in eternity.

      I agree with you that the Asura Maveli was far better than the Deva Vamana, because of his karma. I too believe in the importance of karma.

      Ultimately Maveli and Vamana are mythical figures. How we interpret them is what matters. This particular blog of mine is not meant to be taken very seriously.

      Delete
  12. UnknownSeptember 23, 2013 at 4:55 PM

    I have heard about Onam but I don't know it's history. May be it's high time to Google it. Anyway, happy Onam! :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalSeptember 23, 2013 at 7:24 PM

      I've put the legend behind Onam in this post in a satirical way. It's an interesting legend in which the Asura king, Maveli, turns out to be superior to the gods!

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
16 comments
Read more

Ayodhya: Kingdom of Sorrows

T he Sarayu carried more tears than water. Ayodhya was a sad kingdom. Dasaratha was a good king. He upheld dharma – justice and morality – as best as he could. The citizens were apparently happy. Then, one day, it all changed. One person is enough to change the destiny of a whole kingdom. Who was that one person? Some say it was Kaikeyi, one of the three official wives of Dasaratha. Some others say it was Manthara, Kaikeyi’s chief maid. Manthara was a hunchback. She was the caretaker of Kaikeyi right from the latter’s childhood; foster mother, so to say, because Kaikeyi had no mother. The absence of maternal influence can distort a girl child’s personality. With a foster mother like Manthara, the distortion can be really bad. Manthara was cunning, selfish, and morally ambiguous. A severe physical deformity can make one worse than all that. Manthara was as devious and manipulative as a woman could be in a men’s world. Add to that all the jealousy and ambition that insecure peo...
39 comments
Read more

Liberated

Fiction - parable Vijay was familiar enough with soil and the stones it turns up to realise that he had struck something rare.   It was a tiny stone, a pitch black speck not larger than the tip of his little finger. It turned up from the intestine of the earth while Vijay was digging a pit for the biogas plant. Anand, the scientist from the village, got the stone analysed in his lab and assured, “It is a rare object.   A compound of carbonic acid and magnesium.” Anand and his fellow scientists believed that it must be a fragment of a meteoroid that hit the earth millions of years ago.   “Very rare indeed,” concluded the scientist. Now, it’s plain commonsense that something that’s very rare indeed must be very valuable too. All the more so if it came from the heavens. So Vijay got the village goldsmith to set it on a gold ring.   Vijay wore the ring proudly on his ring finger. Nobody, in the village, however bothered to pay any homage to Vijay’s...
47 comments
Read more

Bharata: The Ascetic King

Bharata is disillusioned yet again. His brother, Rama the ideal man, Maryada Purushottam , is making yet another grotesque demand. Sita Devi has to prove her purity now, years after the Agni Pariksha she arranged for herself long ago in Lanka itself. Now, when she has been living for years far away from Rama with her two sons Luva and Kusha in the paternal care of no less a saint than Valmiki himself! What has happened to Rama? Bharata sits on the bank of the Sarayu with tears welling up in his eyes. Give me an answer, Sarayu, he said. Sarayu accepted Bharata’s tears too. She was used to absorbing tears. How many times has Rama come and sat upon this very same bank and wept too? Life is sorrow, Sarayu muttered to Bharata. Even if you are royal descendants of divinity itself. Rama had brought the children Luva and Kusha to Ayodhya on the day of the Ashvamedha Yagna which he was conducting in order to reaffirm his sovereignty and legitimacy over his kingdom. He didn’t know they w...
30 comments
Read more

Chitrakoot: Antithesis of Ayodhya

Illustration by MS Copilot Designer Chitrakoot is all that Ayodhya is not. It is the land of serenity and spiritual bliss. Here there is no hankering after luxury and worldly delights. Memory and desire don’t intertwine here producing sorrow after sorrow. Situated in a dense forest, Chitrakoot is an abode of simplicity and austerity. Ayodhya’s composite hungers have no place here. Let Ayodhya keep its opulence and splendour, its ambitions and dreams. And its sorrows as well. Chitrakoot is a place for saints like Atri and Anasuya. Atri is one of the Saptarishis and a Manasputra of Brahma. Brahma created the Saptarishis through his mind to help maintain cosmic order and spread wisdom. Anasuya is his wife, one of the most chaste and virtuous women in Hindu mythology. Her virtues were so powerful that she could transmute the great Trimurti of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva into infants when they came to test her chastity. Chitrakoot is the place where asceticism towers above even divinit...
22 comments
Read more