ONAM

Once upon a time, there was a king called

Mahabali, who ruled Kerala. During his rule,
Kerala was rich and prosperous. There was no
theft, no riots and overall peace was found in
Kerala. Everyone in the kingdom were happy and
contended with their lives. Mahabali himself was a
humble and kind-hearted king who listened to each
and everyone’s needs. Gradually, people grew fond
of Mahabali. One thing you should know is that
Mahabali was an Asura or Demon king. So, as I was
saying, people started to get fond of Mahabali and
Asuras in general. This concerned the Devas or the
gods, especially Indra, the ruler of the devas. Indra
thought that one day, Mahabali would grow too
strong and defeat Indra and take his position as
ruler of the Devas. Afraid of losing his position,
sought out the help of Vishnu and asked him to find
a way to stop Mahabali to get any stronger. Vishnu
agreed to help out Indra, and set out for Kerala.
Before he entered Mahabali’s palace, he
transformed into the shape of a pandit. Mahabali
asked Vishnu to identify himself. Vishnu introduced
himself as Pandit Vamana and asked Mahabali for
an amount of land that is equivalent to three steps of
his foot. Mahabali was surprised. He asked the
pandit to request for more land but Vamana
refused. Mahabali then accepted to give Vamana the
land he'd requested for. When Mahabali asked
Vamana to take three steps of land, Vamana
instantly increased into an enormous size. He put
one foot on the whole of earth and one foot on the
whole of sky. Then he asked Mahabali where he
should put his third foot. Mahabali then realised
that this pandit was actually Vishnu in disguise. He
asked Vishnu to put his third foot on his head.
Vishnu was impressed by Mahabali’s behaviour and
asked him for a boon. Mahabali humbly asked
Vishnu to give him at least ten days every year to
visit his kingdom to see how the people of his
kingdom were. Vishnu granted Mahabali his wish
and then stepped on Mahabali’s head. As he did,
Mahabali was sent to the underworld to be the king
of the underworld.

To show Mahabali that we are still living contended and

happy lives, we celebrate the festival of Onam grandly. We
eat Onam Sadya, make pookalams, hold boat races and do
much more to celebrate the return of MAHABALI.