Onam

Onam is Kerala's great harvest-season festival and is closely associated with the beloved king Mahabali. In the traditional story, Mahabali is a generous and capable asura king whose growing power alarms the gods. Lord Vishnu appears as the dwarf Brahmin Vamana and asks the king for as much land as he can cover in three steps. Mahabali agrees; Vamana expands to cosmic size, covers earth and heaven in two strides, and the king offers his own head for the third. Impressed by his integrity and devotion, Vishnu grants Mahabali permission to return and visit his people periodically. Onam welcomes that remembered return with flower carpets called pookalam, the Onasadya feast, new clothes, games, songs and community celebrations. The festival combines harvest abundance with an enduring cultural image of just rule, generosity and a society without want.

Onam is valued for devotion, family tradition and the spiritual or seasonal meaning attached to the day.

Ten days, with a pookalam - a carpet of flower petals - laid at the door and grown larger each morning. The tenth day is Thiruvonam and the Onasadya: a vegetarian meal of two dozen or more items served on a banana leaf in a fixed order. Vallam kali, the snake-boat races, and Pulikali, men painted as tigers, belong to the same days.

Kerala and the Malayali diaspora, kept by Hindus, Christians and Muslims alike as the state's harvest festival rather than a religious one. Ten days from Atham to Thiruvonam; the boat races of the backwaters belong to this season.