Onam 2027

About Onam

Onam is celebrated in the Malayalam month of Chingam, when the rains ease and the harvest comes in. Its story is of Mahabali, a generous asura king whose rule is remembered as a time when everyone was equal and no one went hungry. Vishnu came to him as Vamana, a young brahmin boy, and asked for as much land as he could cover in three steps. Mahabali agreed. Vamana grew to a vast size, covered the earth and the sky in two steps, and Mahabali offered his own head for the third. Moved by his devotion, Vishnu granted him the wish to visit his people once every year. Onam is that visit.

The festival runs for ten days, from Atham to Thiruvonam, the day of the Shravana nakshatra in Chingam. From Atham, families lay a pookalam, a flower carpet in the front yard, adding a new ring of flowers each day so that it is at its largest on Thiruvonam. Many homes also place clay figures of Thrikkakara Appan, a form of Vamana, in or near the pookalam.

Thiruvonam is the main day. People wear new clothes, called Onakkodi, and the family sits down together to the Onam sadya, a vegetarian feast served on a banana leaf with rice, sambar, avial, olan, thoran, pickles, banana chips and much more, finished with two or more kinds of payasam. Onam is celebrated by Malayalis of every faith, in Kerala and wherever they live.

The season brings much more. Vallam kali, the snake boat races, draw crowds to the rivers and backwaters, and the Aranmula boat race is closely tied to the Onam days. Pulikali, the tiger dance, fills the streets of Thrissur, and women dance thiruvathira kali, a graceful dance in a circle.

Unlike most Hindu festivals, Onam follows a nakshatra, not a tithi. Thiruvonam is the day the moon is in Shravana during the solar month of Chingam.