Tag: sadya

  • Onam, OTT & Culture

    Until recently, I was a fan of Rajinikanth’s screen swag. It wasn’t just the recent releases that dampened my enthusiasm. When Kabali released, I was awed. Not just by the performance, but by what I then thought was statesmanship. That was when a Tamil colleague schooled me on contexts, including politics, that I had no clue about. Since then, though I haven’t stopped watching regional movies, I stop at an ” I liked/didn’t like it”.

    Onam reminded me of this. Or rather, it served as a trigger to write this. It began with the chatter around Malayalam films, thanks to OTT. Movies, I have believed, are a cultural phenomenon. On one hand, when someone who is not a Malayali talks up a movie, I am happy about the “cultural exchange”. When that develops into a misplaced sense of authority and expertise, it becomes irritating. When it goes into the level of actors apologising because idiots don’t get references, it becomes angst. Of course you have never heard of Pattanapravesham! You have to go 32 years back to know the damn context. “Can you please end subtitles?” Nuances, commentary, references are often lost in translation. But that’s a two-way street, and movies are a business. [Aside: This could be the next level of Amazon Prime’s X-Ray feature, or even an Alexa skill]

    Onam itself has been hijacked quite a bit by Insta influenza. In the real world, in non-Corona years, this means you hear “haath se khaana padega?”, if you’re waiting to pick up your sadya in a restaurant. Or, worse case, if you’re waiting for a table, all the best. The photoshoot takes time. But this is a relatively smaller threat. The larger one plays out on Twitter –  the politics of Vaman Jayanthi (h added for spite) vs Mahabali! With Malayalis participating instead of celebrating, with snide comments in Keralese. Ha! And all I want to do is wear my mundu, eat my sadya, drink alcohol, watch a movie and in general, have a nice day. That, I have realised, cannot co-exist with being present on social media on that day.

    Access to culture has become easy. You don’t need to learn Malayalam to watch a movie. You also don’t need a Malayali friend to eat a sadya. Both the language and the friend would have helped set context, and contributed to a deeper understanding. But who cares in the age of superficiality and instant gratification?

    I realise that a lot of this is just angst – at a couple of well kept secrets being commoditised, trivialised, and hijacked beyond redemption. I don’t really like labels, but at what point does this become cultural appropriation? Onam is only a few days. I am more worried about cinema. Because the presence of an observer changes what is created. With expanded audience comes more money. When products, and festivals start catering to new tastes, what becomes of the originals, and the audience they used to cater to?

    For now, vannonam, kandonam, thinnonam, pokkonam. Please.

    P.S. Self analysis: Is this how curmudgeons are born?

  • Onashamsakalmadi

    Considering that Kannada is to be made compulsory in Bangalore, this is how Bangalore Malayalis will wish each other henceforth. For those unaware of the Onam backstory, check out my reasonably legit version or the RGV rendition.

    After a search across media platforms for sadya options, and basis last year’s not-so-great experience at Little Home (which has gone down drastically these days) it was a toss between Ente Keralam and the new kid on the 5th Block, Koramangala – Cafe Malabari. Since I read on the FB group that getting reservations at Ente Keralam would be difficult, the choice became easy. As per the information given, the sadya would start at 11.45-12 and cost Rs.225.

    We landed there just after 12, and on hindsight, just in time. A Yakshagana – Mahabali mashup was on hand to welcome everyone. The umbrella is definitely this season’s collection!  🙂 After we got the coupons and barely got the seats – the ones facing the road, the rush started and pretty soon, they even took off the banner advertising the sadya.

    We had to sit for a while watching others polish off their sadya, and Maveli inspecting the arboreal ‘pookkalam’. Finally we were set to begin, as we got the sadya infrastructure in place.

    After a smaller wait, all the pieces began falling into place. Out of the twenty three listed items, we only missed two, and that’s not a bad deal at all, considering the massive rush.

    The one big snag was that because of a tissues distribution failure, I had to keep my clicking finger away from sampling any of this, until I could get a final shot and could then concentrate solely on eating. I gave up after the sambar made its entry. After three rice rounds, and two payasams, there seemed to be only a couple of survivors. The banana peel doesn’t count!

    In a coconutshell, Cafe Malabari did a good job. If they survive the Koramangala restaurant wars, I’ll do a repeat next year. The funniest part of the entire experience was Mahabali shouting out ‘Sold Out’ to the crowd outside. 🙂

    I wish we could add an ഓണകോഴി (chicken) to the mix. Meanwhile, I do have a concept for next year, based on the beer lunch. Will need to talk to the Kerala Beverages Corporation for this though –  ഓണാശംസകളള് 🙂

    until next time, as a fellow mallu said, Mahabelly 🙂

  • Oh, numb!

    While I was handling the high frequency burping that signifies the completion of the meal above, my phone rang. It was an ex-colleague, but more importantly, dear friend and a fellow mallu. I picked it up, expecting a loud ‘Happy Onam’ from the other end. She was working, and wanted a person’s number. I wished her a happy onam, and without missing a breath, got a “Oh, I forgot” response.

    That perhaps typifies this generation of living-outside-Kerala Malayalis. That’s a generalisation, of course, and a huge one at that, because thankfully, I know many of my fellow Keralites who religiously go home every Onam, come what may, and have a blast. But as every Onam passes, I can feel it slipping away.

    Ten days of holidays – a cousin reunion, the hustle and bustle of a sadya preparation, to a day taken off from college to visit a relative’s house for the sadya, to figuring out which new movies are being shown on the telly for Onam and scanning the papers for a restaurant that serves a good sadya, obviously it wasn’t just me who grew up.

    I suspect that it might not get any better, and as a statement in Malayala Manorama went,  I might even get used ‘eating a sadya in the mind’. This generation still has its (mostly office) pookkalams and the sadya. For those that come later, the sadya will perhaps just be a meal by itself.

    until then, happy onam 🙂

    PS: The legend, the Ram Gopal Varma version, and the tag.

  • The Onam tag

    Today is Onam. I’ll get wished – “Happy Onam”, and I’ll mutter a thanks/flash a smile, hopefully not weary/ type a ‘thanks’ with a smiley that will not reflect the emotions within. That’s perhaps apt, because there aren’t many emotions within. I concluded a Kerala visit last weekend, and felt compelled to figure out what I was feeling. – for Cochin, as always, and for Onam, because it was the season.

    I sit in the fancy store, as D and another M swan around trying to find appropriate things to hang from their neck/ears/hair. They aren’t alone, there is an assortment of folks of their gender, all there for the same purpose. Sometime during their existence, the store owners figured out that those of the other gender would really be lost souls in such a place, so they made sure there was a corner where they could be lost souls without impinging on the ecstasy of the real shoppers. A nice goodwill gesture. And so there I sit, with my companion, which never fails to respond to my touch, and type a few words, which are then saved in the messages drafts folder. Alternately gawking and typing, and realising that the shoppers would be here again very soon, in search of the latest trends in accessories. Fashions change quickly, after all.

    I move around the city that once used to be undisputed home, and familiar feelings bob up. Things have changed, and it is perhaps no longer undisputed. An old breakfast joint, which has many memories attached to it, has changed its name. I look up at an old building, hoping to catch a glimpse of the old lending library that set the tone for many current reading habits. It no longer exists. It is strange how, these days, when I go back to Cochin, I have mixed feelings. Where once there was only a sense of belonging, the changes have ensured that there is now also a sense of un-belonging. Earlier, I couldn’t fully grasp this feeling, could one be homesick at home? But then I remember a comment that Cyn had made on an old post – “An Idea called Home“, where she described it as being ‘homesick for a life stage’. There’s an image of Cochin that exists only in my mind, with many tags, its from an age long ago.

    I watch a movie – ‘Rithu‘ (Seasons), in a theatre complex that had 3 screens from the time I knew it, back in the 80’s. Music composed by an old school pal. (that deserves a post too…soon) Its a lovely story about childhood friends, about how their relationship(s) change when they grow up, and how they themselves have changed. I realise that its not just places, we also ‘tag’ people at different stages of our lives and we often don’t bother to update the tag, a kind of self-conditioning. Parents, siblings, friends, relatives, they have all been tagged at some point and not updated after some point, the tags define how we behave with them at every point later in life.  Over time, each believe they have different priorities/viewpoints/interests and so on,  maybe that’s why sometimes when we are ready for a relationship, they aren’t, and vice versa. There’s a chance that we will miss the opportunity to form a bond. We fail each other, without even realising it. We change, we move on, but the tags, in many ways, remain constant.

    I also realise that we do it to ourselves too – tags. We make images of ourselves which define what we say and do. We tag ourselves. We rarely acknowledge that and proceed to make up our own justifications, which suit us/others. They make sense at a particular point in time, they may or may not later. Yet, we live by them. Do we revisit the tags…objectively?

    One of the reasons, I store thoughts and feelings here is because I want to look back. Who was I in that September of 2009, what was i feeling, what was i thinking, can i understand me at a later point? It is amazing how some earlier posts give perspectives about the self, that had been forgotten. Time has a way of distorting, hopefully these tags will aid me in objectivity at a later point.

    Meanwhile, almost every shop has the ‘Onam Discount’ board put up. There are restaurants that have already announced their ‘sadya‘ rates. What is Onam to me? At a very young age, I had thought it was someone’s wedding since that was the other time we used to have a sadya on banana leaves. Memories – ten days of school holidays, a trip – most likely to Palakkad, meeting up with the vast set of paternal relatives and a few days of fun, collecting flowers for making pookkalams, dressing up in the traditional mundu, visits to temples, and so on. These are childhood memories and it is interesting how the memories dwindle as I look back to the later years of my life. The recent memories are somehow more indistinct, not separated much from the days before or after, except for the special (new) movies that get shown on television. I wonder whether I should stay back for a few more days and script a few new tags. I don’t. So, ironically, Onam survives, on its early tags. For now, I think that’s best. And as the line in that movie goes, I eagerly await the next Rithubhedam (change of seasons) of my mind.

    until next time, thanks for tagging along on a mind ride 🙂

    PS. For a more light hearted approach to Onam, you could check out my version of the myth, my Ram Gopal Varma version and the 55 word view.