Being here in Karnataka, Keralites feel homesickness in the month of September.

There is a king who visits us every year – this year Keralites welcomed the king to Kundapura where we, along with FSL-India CEL’s staff and volunteers celebrated the Onam festival on 11^th September.

As Hu Jintao says, “Culture is a window reflecting the history, culture and spiritual world of a nation, Cultural exchange is a bridge to enhance the mutual understanding and friendship between the people of different nations.”

It was a moment of cultural exchange. The peculiar culture of Keralites was exchanged to other people through the Onam celebration. The legend behind our celebration goes like this…

There was a king called ‘Mahabali’, he was a powerful Asura leader who was loved by everyone. The lord Vishnu felt jealous of the popularity of the king. In order to diminish the popularity of Bali, he was disguised as a dwarf called ‘Vamana’. He approached Bali and tricked him by asking for a piece of land which he could cover in 3 strides. Bali accepted the request of Vamana, the first step covered the earth, the second heaven and with no place else to cover, Bali finally had to offer his head as the third step. That is when Vamana stepped on Bali’s head and pushed him down into the underworld. Meanwhile, Bali requested Vamana to grant him the permission to visit his people every year. This year, Bali visited us at Kundapura.

The special events of our celebration were onapookkalam and onakkalikal. Onapookkalam is a floor decoration with flowers to welcome the King. We, along with the volunteers and staff decorated the floor with flowers. The fun moments of our celebration began in the afternoon, when we conducted onakkalikal (fun games) like sundharikyupottuthodal (drawing a bindi on a picture of a lady while blindfolded), kuppiyilvalayidal (biting the cookies) etc.

Even though away from home, feeling the closeness or warmness of family…

Big thanks to the staff and volunteers of FSL-India for making our face smile.