The ‘greeny’ ruddy video faded out to black in the 19 inch screen of the monitor. I tried my level best to not open my mouth to divulge the bafflement inside my mind. The bafflement is not at the quality of the images captured in the tranquility of DSR 400, but on the fact that despite my masters degree in English language and literature its very difficult for me to recapture the true essence of Onam in that language. I might say it’s been celebrated in memory of our great mythical emperor Mahabali, and then I might go straight into Barthes and his thoughts on myth (sorry I don’t even remember that). Oh! Heavens where am I at the end of this five years of familiarizing myself with this Anglo- Saxon tongue. These people have protruded their tongue so wide that it has become difficult for all of us both Mangaloids and Negroids to push a day without cleaning that tongue.
Indeed what is Onam, at least what is Onam for me? Its not a festival that comes regularly on a specific date or a specific month, for sometimes it comes early in august or at other times it comes lazily at September, and since I’m not an expert in astrology and that sort of stuffs I cant predict exactly in which month it comes in a year unless I get a quick glance at the calendar. When I was a student (sad that I’m no more one) Onam was a ten day vacation that is celebrated with lots of TV programs and a grant feast with plenty of dishes. Surely Mahabali is one of the most widely accepted cultural icons that bind the varied and disparate malayale psyches collectively. Indeed his is an image that is buried deep in the collective unconscious of all “Malayalee” folks. In spite of knowing these facts I still feel an incompleteness in my knowledge about my culture, my ethnicity and my folklore. But whom should I blame for this voidness, what all things constitute this void? Is it that difficult to answer these questions?
