{"id":6750,"date":"2010-08-23T00:32:14","date_gmt":"2010-08-22T16:32:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/?p=6750"},"modified":"2010-08-23T00:32:14","modified_gmt":"2010-08-22T16:32:14","slug":"onam-wishes-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/religion\/2010\/08\/23\/onam-wishes-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Onam Wishes"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is interesting article on celebration of Onam in Malaysia, from the Star<\/a>. <\/strong>I thought Onam was a festival steeped in religion, but looks like its celebrated by Malayalees of different faith as well. Learnt something new today.<\/p>\n

\n

Kerala in southern India celebrates the Onam festival this week. The harvest festival is celebrated by all Keralites regardless of race, religion and creed for over 10 days. This year, in conjunction with the holy month of Ramadan, StarMetro takes a look at the celebrations by the Malayalee Muslims.<\/strong><\/p>\n

MUSLIMS from all over the world are immersed in Ramadan, but for the Muslims of Kerala the added joy of the Onam festival makes celebrating fasting month sweeter.<\/p>\n

Onam, is the most celebrated event in Kerala that lasts 10 days and is filled with activities including boat races, floral carpet designs called\u00a0Pookalam<\/em> and ends with the\u00a0Thiruonam<\/em> day on Aug 23.<\/p>\n

The story behind the cultural festival revolves around King Mahabali who once ruled Kerala. The revered king visits Kerala every year during Onam and his subjects organise the celebrations to welcome Mahabali home.<\/p>\n

For the Muslim community, the day starts with special prayers in the mosque known as\u00a0Palli<\/em> in Malayalam. In Malaysia, there are several Malabar mosques including Kuala Lumpur\u2019s very own Surau Hidhayatul Islam in Selayang Baru. Special prayers for buka puasa are also held in poor homes in the spirit of Onam.<\/div>\n

\u201cSince it is the fasting month, there would be no elaborate celebrations. After the night\u00a0Terawih<\/em> prayers, a family gathering would be organised without a feast,\u201d said N. R. Nambiar, the honorary general secretary of the All Malaysia Malayalee Association (Amma).<\/p>\n

On Thiruonam day, the most important part of the celebrations is the \u00a0Onasadhya<\/em>, a complete banana leaf meal with vegetarian dishes.<\/p>\n

Malayalee Muslims or better known as Moplahs serve several dishes, including the traditional\u00a0Pathiri<\/em> with Chicken Curry or Dum briyani after their Terawih prayers.<\/p>\n

Pathiri is a bread similar to naan while Dum Briyani \u2014 the briyani rice is wedged between coal fire on the top of the pot and fire at the bottom.<\/p>\n

\"\"Traditional: A model wearing the costume worn by Muslim women called the Mundu.<\/div>\n

Across Kerala, Malayalees all share the \u201cMundu\u201d a traditional costume of white cloth with broad gold borders but the draping style differs according to the religious background.<\/p>\n

The Muslim women wear the \u201cMundu\u201d with coloured border, blouses with long sleeves called \u201ckuppayam\u201d and a head gear called \u201cthattam\u201d.<\/p>\n

In addition to ordinary jewellery, women wear gold or silver waist bands. The men wear their \u201cmundu\u201d and green broad bands around their waste. The men\u2019s head gear is known as\u00a0Thalapa<\/em>.<\/p>\n

It is a tradition for Hindus to place the Pookalam or floral carpet designs in front of their homes but this is not compulsory for the Muslim community.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not a must, however, it was practised in those days to usher King Mahabali in every house as he was a king for everyone,\u201d added Nambiar.<\/p>\n

The Pookalam is a myriad of colours with flowers of every kind and hue and in the centre is the\u00a0Nila Vilaku<\/em> (oil lamp).<\/p>\n

The lamp can be found in every Malayalee home since early days but the Muslims have a crescent moon and a star on top of the lamp that was introduced for cultural activities.<\/p>\n

Malaysian Malayalees rarely get an opportunity to celebrate Onam in a large scale because they do not have holidays for Onam.<\/p>\n

Due to this, families may organise a feast and invite their fellow friends and family members to join in the celebrations.<\/p>\n

The local Kerala Samajams also organise luncheons and activities for all Malayalees to commemorate the day. Children of the Samajam members are also taught various folk dances including\u00a0Kaikotti Kalli<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is interesting article on celebration of Onam in Malaysia, from the Star. I thought Onam was a festival steeped in religion, but looks like its celebrated by Malayalees of different faith as well. Learnt something new today. Kerala in southern India celebrates the Onam festival this week. The harvest festival is celebrated by all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,10],"tags":[65],"class_list":["post-6750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-indian","category-religion","tag-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6750"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6750\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6751,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6750\/revisions\/6751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poobalan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}