Despite the emergency situation prevailing in the State, Keralites celebrated Vishu (the Malayalam New Year Day), a day which marks the annual agricultural operations with gaiety though in a subdued manner.
Family members woke up early in the mrning to see the Kani( the first sight) made up of a picture of Lord Krishna resplendent with ornaments, grains, seeds, new cloth and a bunch of currency, which assures an year filled with prosperity and happiness.
The eldest member of the family gave away Vishu Kaineettam (a token gift) in the form of a coin and new cloth to members of the family. Nostaligia marked the occasion as 85 year old V B Radha, the patriarch of Perumbavoor’s Vembanattu family gave away Kaineettam to her children, grand children and great grand children.
The cattle herds in agricultural family too were in for a treat in the morning itself as they were worshipped with lighted lamps and pictures of Lord Krishna. Farm workers toiling in the paddy fields assembled in the farm lands in the early hours itself to commence symbolic agricultural operations.
It is an age old tradition for the village astrologers to call on families to provide the annual forecast, popularly known as Vishu Phalam. Village astrologers are gone long back and people call on them in the morning hours to know what is in store for them in the coming year.
“Things will not be as bad as it was in 2021. The Covid-19 pandemic will definitely subside and normalcy would gradually return to the country. There are signs of negativity giving way to optimism,” said Parappanangadi Unnikrishna Panickar, Sanskrit and Vedic scholar about the coming days.
True to the prediction, it rained heavily in the State on Vishu Day and the chief minister, who was undergoing treatment for Covid-19 at the Kozhikode Medical College Hospital for the last three days returned to his palatial home at Pinarayi in Kannur. Speaker P Sreeramakrishnan, who was in the ICU since he was questioned by the Customs Department in connection with hawala transaction, was moved back to the hospital ward after it was found that he too had defeated the pandemic.
“Vishu is always the beginning of a new dawn. It is a harbinger of happiness and peace . That’s why it is being celebrated in unison by all sections of Kerala society,” said Prof P G Haridas, eminent historian.