Onam Special !

2nd September, 2009

On Tuesday we had a day of fun and games at SISP! It is the start of "Onam" - the ten-day harvest festival in the Indian state of Kerala, celebrated by all religions and castes. The children dressed up for the occasion and came to school in their best clothes looking very smart. And they were particularly happy because they have three days' holiday to look forward to, starting tomorrow!

In the morning there was a competition to make the most beautiful 'pookkalam' - essentially a pattern or picture made with flower petals. These can be seen all over Kerala, adorning pavements, shop fronts and bits of empty road-side land. There will usually be a roof placed over them because this also happens to be the monsoon season and they'd be washed away otherwise! Some patters are small - just half a metre in diameter. Others can be huge - maybe a 3D scene with an area of 25 square metres! Anyway, SISP's pookkalams ranged from 600mm up to 2 metres in diameter. Anything bigger would cost too much and also take an inordinate amount of time to construct. As it was, our classes spent all morning making them and even had to raid nearby rough ground to find sufficient petals!

Mereena, Coordinator of the Coconut Workshop, made her own version of a little pookkalam with some of the workshop's products, as can be seen in the pictures below.

We had planned that this would be a competition between our six classes and that teachers were not allowed to help. I was to be the judge and winners would be selected from adjacent classes: F-Group and E-Group, E-Group and D-Group, and so on. However, the teachers couldn't resist joining in, especially the men! In the end, as everyone had had fun, I cancelled the competition and decided everyone could be a winner. Thankfully, this turned out to be a popular decision!

At lunch we had a special dessert made by Thanky Teacher - 'payasam', a sweet rice dish made with milk, sugar and a few dried fruits.

In the afternoon we had a time for group games. These were played in SISP's rather-cramped back yard because the side yard was occupied by the flower arrangements and it would have taken too much effort to get everyone to the beach-side ground that we normally use. Despite that, everyone had great fun playing games like British Bulldog and even musical chairs! I noticed that the teachers get especially competitive at these events - they revert to being big kids themselves and make such a fuss if they don't win!

Clive, volunteer at SISP, Kovalam.