Happy Onam!

Greetings all - Here in Chennai we have had an unexpected four day weekend.  All you parents will love how school holidays are announced here.  Although there is a calendar for the school year, holidays can be added at a moment's notice.  So, last Thursday, when I went to pick up Ashwin and Priya at school, I got a notice that school would be cancelled on Friday in honor of the Onam Festival(more on that later).  Additionally, since the next two weeks are exams, school would only be half days that entire time.  So, we settled in to enjoy a long weekend.  Then, this morning we awoke to find that the state government had decided to declare today a holiday too!  (this is in honor of the one hundredth birthday of Annadurai, a renowned political leader here in Tamil Nadu).    Of course, Ashwin and Priya were crushed to hear that school had been cancelled!  

So, Onam is a Malayali (people from the neighboring state of Kerala) festival which celebrates the harvest.   People decorate their homes with elaborate floral creations, but the thrust of the celebration seems to center around a lot of eating. Apparently 36 dishes are customary, with several special types of payasam for dessert.  It started last Friday, and goes on for ten days.  We hated to pass up the opportunity to celebrate a holiday centered around food, so on Friday night we went out to a local hotel for an Onam Buffet.  There were literally dozens of dishes, all wonderful - 10 or more salads to start, appam (special coconut based crepe type items), many types of vegetable and meat curries, special rices, and of course, the kids favorite, a dessert bar with at least eight types of dessert, including a special cake and ice cream.    The photos accompanying this blog show us with some typical Onam decorations in   hotel lobby.  There are also pictures from this Sunday's harvest festival at our church.  After the church service,  large numbers of the congregation adjourned to an open area nearby for a festival with games, a bazaar and lots of food (of course!)  There are photos of Ashwin and Priya playing some of the games(Ashwin is trying to knock downcoconuts  with cricket balls,and Priya is playing kids roulette), and also of our friend Rebecca making what must have been one of hundreds of dosa (another crepe type snack, this made with a lentil/rice based batter).  Yum...