THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Ever wondered what makes a Malayalee crave for Onam? It’s like being a child once again and slipping into a wonderland where everything comes alive as if out of a nostalgic past. To live at least one day of the year in full prosperity, that’s what Onam is all about. It must be this same nostalgic force working behind ‘uthrada pachil’ too. Or when shopping is no longer an indulgence, especially when everything comes in instant packages, when anything you buy would arrive at your house in neatly packed boxes,why this mad rush at the last minute on the streets? On Thursday, there was not an iota of space left on the streets in and around East Fort. Shoppers had usurped every inch. It was the same near Palayam too. The Chalai market resembled a war camp, just that you could escape through the by-lanes (if you tried hard). From the branded shops to the wayside sheds that sold clothes, there were takers everywhere. And by evening, it was the same mad crowd that flowed through the Museum-Vellayambalam road too. As if the illumination there was a space-craft from the Mars that one should not miss. ‘’Uthrada pachil could be best explained as a habit of our society. Leave out the poor, the upper and middle strata in the society could purchase everything well before hand. But like individuals, this society is gripped by the habit of ‘uthrada pachil’. It comes out from a collective unconsciousness and is ruled by nostalgia,” historian M G Sasibhooshan puts it across neatly. With every passing year, the crowd on the eve of Thiruvonam seems to get larger and bigger on the streets. Earlier, if half the rush was to buy vegetables and stationary for the big feast on the Onam day, it has spread to textiles, electronics shops and even hotels now. Maybe it is the first of the four-day leave granted by the government for Onam that explains the rush. Or maybe it is shopping for the last of the relatives in the long list. “I received my bonus yesterday. I have to leave for Idukki this afternoon. My children would be expecting new clothes,” Radhakrishnan, a labourer in a quarry, says. He was surfing through the stalls near Putharikandam Maidan on Thursday morning. There are some who miss out all the shopping too. “I buy no clothes for Onam, but receive a lot from others,” says Mayor K Chandrika. “For me everyday is uthrada pachil. I have been attending programmes from the morning today,” she smiles. But Chandrika remembers how her mother ran around the house at her ancestral home during her childhood when there were many relatives to be fed and everything had to be ready for Thiruvonam. “Uthrada pachil was my mother’s last minute rush in the kitchen to make pickles and set things ready for the next day’s feast,” she recalls. Thursday gave a tough time for traffic and police personnel too. In some places, even the traffic regulations did not seem to help. But it seems everyone was in the mood to get caught in the traffic, to walk with raised elbows to make space in the crowd and walk miles to reach the car parked on the next road. It’s Onam..no complaints…
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