Skip to main content

The Paradox of Onam

From the Onam celebrations at my school today 


Kerala has started Onam celebrations, the most colourful and joyful festival of the state. The schools in the state will be closed for a whole week from tomorrow. Even the government offices will not function for most part of the week. Onam is not just a festival, it is the heartbeat of the people of Kerala. 

The legend that sustains Onam is quite paradoxical. Mahabali, or Maveli as he is affectionately called in Kerala, was an Asura king. He was the paragon of goodness though he belonged to species called demons, Asuras. During his reign there was no corruption whatever. People possessed and practised all good qualities. In short, Kerala was a utopia under Maveli's tutelage. 

The gods became jealous. That's the paradox. Gods who should be happy to see humans living happily in peace and harmony became jealous! None but Vishnu himself decided to decimate the utopia on earth. He took the form of a dwarf named Vamana and deceived Maveli. The greatest king who ever ruled on the earth was expelled from his kingdom by the deception of a god. Another paradox is that the king was an asura, a demon. 

Gods are worse than the a demon in this legend. Onam celebrates the goodness of a demon and keeps gods away for a while. 

Appearances can be deceptive, Onam teaches us. Gods can be deceptive and demons may be far more benign. 

We live in a time which Shakespeare's witches would describe best: fair is foul and foul is fair. What comes garbed as religion is actually hate. The present king of the country travels the world preaching the ideal of One earth, one family, one future, when his devotees are killing whole communities of people who don't subscribe to the king's religious and other affiliations. You can be killed while travelling on a train in this country for something like wearing a skull cap. Your dress matters. Your food does too. Many other things matter too. Your house may be bulldozed if you criticise the king. Your office may be raided. A whole tribe can be dispossessed of their homelands within days in this new utopia under construction. 

It's sad times though we were promised Achche din [Happy days]. 

How do we celebrate in sad times? "In the dark times / Will there also be singing?" Bertolt Brecht asked that question. His answer was: "Yes, there will also be singing. / About the dark times." 

Let Maveli return this year too from the netherworld to which he was sent by the gods. Let us sing about his goodness. Let us celebrate the goodness of a demon if only to remind ourselves of the potential for goodness that we all have, even the demons among us.

PS. This post is a part of Blogchatter Half Marathon 2023 

 

Labels

Labels:

Comments

  1. Yamini MacLeanAugust 25, 2023 at 2:21 PM

    Hari OM
    Well said, sir! It is a paradox of life that there can be no concept of 'good' without 'bad' to offset it. We are destined always to be fighting for the balance. Onashamsakal! YAM xx

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 25, 2023 at 6:41 PM

      Thanks, Yam, for the greetings. Wish you too the joys of the season.

      Delete
  2. magiceyeAugust 25, 2023 at 4:54 PM

    Happy Onam! May the Maveli will prevail!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 25, 2023 at 6:42 PM

      Yes, let's strive to create a Maveli kingdom. Happy Onam.

      Delete
  3. Harshita NandaAugust 25, 2023 at 7:16 PM

    You certainly have a knack of taking potshots Sir :) Onashamsakal in advance...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 25, 2023 at 7:26 PM

      Thanks, Harshita. Greetings to you too. Onam is such a contrast to today that potshots come spontaneously.

      Delete
  4. SuchitaAugust 25, 2023 at 9:54 PM

    To think what is being preached right now "a return to the old" of sorts is actually just a return to how I the king define the old. As always your posts help me articulate my anger.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 26, 2023 at 9:55 AM

      How the past is defined - that's the problem. The past is being recreated to suit the political needs of a handful of people.

      Delete
  5. Pandian RamaiahAugust 25, 2023 at 9:58 PM

    Appearances can be deceptive. The story of Karna depicts this also. Someone needs to retell the story from Maveli's perspective. I believe it should have been attempted in Kerala.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 26, 2023 at 9:57 AM

      I'm not sure if anyone has done that seriously. Apart from the legends and songs related to Onam, I'm not sure there are any good works of literature that tried to take a deep look at Maveli.

      Delete
  6. peppylady (Dora)August 26, 2023 at 7:02 AM

    Never heard of Onam.
    Coffee is on, and stay safe.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tomichan MatheikalAugust 26, 2023 at 9:57 AM

      Kerala is just a tiny corner of India, Dora. Don't worry.

      Delete
  7. A student of 12 CAugust 26, 2023 at 7:09 AM

    What's more interesting than a festival which unites all the people in Kerala! I really wish if keralites are united by a common thing, then it'd be great. Unfortunately, I missed the celebration at school due to some family reasons. Anyway, Happy Onam Sir.

    ReplyDelete
  8. marietta pereiraAugust 27, 2023 at 12:42 PM

    Happy Onam! You certainly have told it like it is.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Pooja MahimkarAugust 27, 2023 at 1:58 PM

    Oh! I didn't know of this story, thanks for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Anupama JoshyAugust 29, 2023 at 12:00 PM

    Happy Onam!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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...
33 comments
Read more

Abdullah’s Religion

O Abdulla Renowned Malayalam movie actor Mohanlal recently offered special prayers for Mammootty, another equally renowned actor of Kerala. The ritual was performed at Sabarimala temple, one of the supreme Hindu pilgrimage centres in Kerala. No one in Kerala found anything wrong in Mohanlal, a Hindu, praying for Mammootty, a Muslim, to a Hindu deity. Malayalis were concerned about Mammootty’s wellbeing and were relieved to know that the actor wasn’t suffering from anything as serious as it appeared. Except O Abdulla. Who is this Abdulla? I had never heard of him until he created an unsavoury controversy about a Hindu praying for a Muslim. This man’s Facebook profile describes him as: “Former Professor Islahiaya, Media Critic, Ex-Interpreter of Indian Ambassador, Founder Member MADHYAMAM.” He has 108K followers on FB. As I was reading Malayalam weekly this morning, I came to know that this Abdulla is a former member of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind Kerala , a fundamentalist organisation. ...
10 comments
Read more

Lucifer and some reflections

Let me start with a disclaimer: this is not a review of the Malayalam movie, Lucifer . These are some thoughts that came to my mind as I watched the movie today. However, just to give an idea about the movie: it’s a good entertainer with an engaging plot, Bollywood style settings, superman type violence in which the hero decimates the villains with pomp and show, and a spicy dance that is neatly tucked into the terribly orgasmic climax of the plot. The theme is highly relevant and that is what engaged me more. The role of certain mafia gangs in political governance is a theme that deserves to be examined in a good movie. In the movie, the mafia-politician nexus is busted and, like in our great myths, virtue triumphs over vice. Such a triumph is an artistic requirement. Real life, however, follows the principle of entropy: chaos flourishes with vengeance. Lucifer is the real winner in real life. The title of the movie as well as a final dialogue from the eponymous hero sugg...
4 comments
Read more

Empuraan and Ramayana

Maggie and I will be watching the Malayalam movie Empuraan tomorrow. The tickets are booked. The movie has created a lot of controversy in Kerala and the director has decided to impose no less than 17 censors on it himself. I want to watch it before the jingoistic scissors find its way to the movie. It is surprising that the people of Kerala took such exception to this movie when the same people had no problem with the utterly malicious and mendacious movie The Kerala Story (2023). [My post on that movie, which I didn’t watch, is here .] Empuraan is based partly on the Gujarat riots of 2002. The riots were real and the BJP’s role in it (Mr Modi’s, in fact) is well-known. So, Empuraan isn’t giving the audience any falsehood as The Kerala Story did. Moreover, The Kerala Story maligned the people of Kerala while Empuraan is about something that happened in the faraway Gujarat quite long ago. Why are the people of Kerala then upset with Empuraan ? Because it tells the truth, M...
13 comments
Read more

Empuraan – Review

Revenge is an ancient theme in human narratives. Give a moral rationale for the revenge and make the antagonist look monstrously evil, then you have the material for a good work of art. Add to that some spices from contemporary politics and the recipe is quite right for a hit movie. This is what you get in the Malayalam movie, Empuraan , which is running full houses now despite the trenchant opposition to it from the emergent Hindutva forces in the state. First of all, I fail to understand why so much brouhaha was hollered by the Hindutvans [let me coin that word for sheer convenience] who managed to get some 3 minutes censored from the 3-hour movie. The movie doesn’t make any explicit mention of any of the existing Hindutva political parties or other organisations. On the other hand, Allahu Akbar is shouted menacingly by Islamic terrorists, albeit towards the end. True, the movie begins with an implicit reference to what happened in Gujarat in 2002 after the Godhra train burnin...
8 comments
Read more