Keralites celebrated Onam and Vamana Jayanthi on Saturday amidst the Covid-19 pandemic tightening its tentacles across the State. The usual celebrations associated with Onam festival were missing for the first time in modern times because of the unabated spike in the number of Covid-19 cases reported across the State.
People preferred to celebrate Onam within the premises of their houses. Though the thoroughfares were jam packed till late Friday, Saturday turned out to be a subdued day and the usual crowd was missing in all cities and towns.
The main pilgrimage centers Sri Padmanabha Swamy Temple at Thiruvananthapuram, Sri Vamana Murthy Temple at Thrikkakkara, and Lord Krishna Temple at Guruvayur which would have brimmed to capacity with devotees in normal times saw only minimal crowd.
Ladies of the houses in arranged special floral tributes to Mahabali, the mythological character who they believe visits the State every Onam day in the Malayalam month of Chingam to greet his former prajas. They make special flower arrangements with flowers and plants with mud/clay statue of Thrikkakkara Appan (God Vishnu). The morning silence was broken by the ululation by ladies of the house which marked the arrival of Maha Bali.
Over the years, the traditional celebrations are confined to rural Kerala while cities celebrate Onam as the biggest shopping season. “Maha Bali and Vamana Murty are for traditionalists. What matters is how much you shop,” said Prof VT Rema, scholar in Ramayana and Mahabharata.
The LDF Government had made elaborate arrangements to make life easy for the man in the street despite the ever-growing Covid cases in Kerala. All ration card holders numbering 8 million were promised kits containing groceries for preparing Onam feast for a five-member family. Though the Opposition Congress made some hue and cry over the non-availability of the Onam kits to the entire population, the CPI (M) leaders termed it as a ritual criticism.
The BJP and the Sangh Parivar were busy organizing meetings across the State as a mark of respect to the thousands massacred in the Mappila Rebellion of 1921. It was on this day in 1921 religious zealots unleashed South India’s biggest ever communal pogrom under the label of Khilafat Movement and massacred hapless people in Malabar region who refused to change their religion.