Onam

India is widely known for it's most popular religion, Hinduism. I am from the southern state of Kerala, where there are plenty of Christians. Because many of us are Christian, we don't really get to partake in Indian festivals because they praise Hindu Gods. My family and I are Christian so we don't usually take part in many Indian holidays. But there is one holiday, and it comes specifically from Kerala. It's called Onam, the harvest festival and also the homecoming of a king. The king was said to be residing in the underworld but was very by loved the people of Kerala. He would come back once a year and the people of Kerala would celebrate by showing him all the things that they've grown. We make designs from flower petals and also have a vegetarian dish on banana leaves. It's kind of like the Thanksgiving of Kerala.


Onam is celebrated for ten days with feasts, dances and boat races. During this time, people usually wear the traditional clothing of Kerala which are outfits of white and gold. We celebrated this festival at my church. Almost everybody was dressed in our traditional clothes, so it looked like the whole church was matching. We even had the flower design outside (which was hard to get people NOT to step on!) and we even had lunch on banana leaves. This is definitely one of my favorite Indian holidays because it allows us to celebrate our culture. It's definitely a lot harder to celebrate this holiday in America, because we can't do all the festivities that take place in India. But we do try to do as much as we can. My family even had a little Onam get-together at my cousin's house. This was our first time doing it, and our parents were so happy to see their children learning about our culture. I'm sure it's very difficult for our parents to instill the Indian culture and values in their children, especially with the influences of America and even school. My parents, aunts and uncles all came to America in the 80's and 90's. We do visit India every once in awhile, but tickets are really pricy, especially during summer vacation when the children can actually go. When we do visit India, we go for about 3 weeks because it wouldn't be worth it to go for any less. I think celebrating Onam gives the parents of my family a little sense of nostalgia. I'm sure it brings back their memories of celebrating this holiday in India with their friends and loved ones. I'm glad we can bring at least a little bit of our culture with celebrating Onam in America.