Onam - A Season Of Homecoming

Coming Home for Onam

Every year, as Onam approaches, something almost magical happens across Kerala. Airports become crowded, railway stations overflow, highways carry a steady stream of cars heading south, and homes that have stood quietly for months suddenly begin to stir. Malayalis return from Dubai, London, Singapore and the Gulf, from Bengaluru, Mumbai, Chennai and Delhi, carrying suitcases filled with gifts, unfamiliar chocolates and clothes. But what they are really bringing home is something that cannot be packed into luggage: themselves.

For Onam is not merely a festival of flowers, food and new clothes. It is Kerala’s great season of homecoming.

It is when distances that have accumulated over months and sometimes years suddenly disappear. Families scattered across cities and countries find themselves gathered under the same roof. Cousins who once spent every holiday together may now meet after five, ten or even twenty years. They may initially exchange slightly awkward smiles, comparing photographs of how much everyone has changed. Yet within an hour, childhood has a remarkable way of returning.

A joke remembered from school days. An old nickname nobody else knows. A photograph discovered in an attic. A story about a prank that parents had almost forgotten. Suddenly, the successful professional from Bengaluru becomes the mischievous boy who climbed the mango tree, and the accomplished woman from London becomes the little girl who once fought with her cousins over the last piece of banana chips.

That is the peculiar magic of returning home.

The ancestral house has its own memory. The old wooden door still creaks in exactly the same place. The courtyard where cousins once played remains beneath the same sky. The kitchen carries the unmistakable aroma of coconut, curry leaves and jaggery. Somewhere there is an old chair where grandfather used to sit, a room where grandmother once told stories, perhaps a wall marked with the height of children who have long since grown into adults.

And for a brief few days, the house becomes more than a house. It becomes an archive of lives.

Grandparents occupy a special place in these reunions. For children growing up far away, grandparents are often the bridge to a Kerala they know more through stories than experience. Onam gives them the chance to walk through those stories. They discover where their parents grew up, where their father climbed trees, where their mother learned to cook, where generations before them celebrated festivals long before airports and video calls made the world smaller.

There is laughter, of course. There are arguments over old family stories. There are photographs, endless conversations, elaborate meals and cousins staying awake far beyond bedtime. But beneath all the noise is something deeper: the quiet reassurance that we still belong somewhere.

Perhaps that is why Malayalis travel such extraordinary distances for Onam. They are not simply travelling towards a place. They are travelling towards people, memories and versions of themselves that exist nowhere else.

And then, inevitably, Onam ends. Suitcases are packed again. Goodbyes linger at railway stations and airport departure gates. The house slowly becomes quiet. The last banana leaf is cleared, the pookkalam disappears, and everyone returns to the lives they had temporarily left behind.

But something has changed.

A few days of togetherness have renewed relationships that time and distance had begun to erode. A cousin’s phone number has been saved. A forgotten friendship has been revived. A family photograph has acquired new faces. Somewhere, perhaps, a child has discovered the meaning of home.

Festivals, after all, are only occasions. The calendar gives us the date, rituals give us the form, and traditions give us the language.

But what happens within those occasions is far greater than the festival itself.

A festival may last a few days. A reunion may last only an afternoon. Yet a conversation, an embrace, a shared meal, a remembered story or a moment beside an ageing grandparent can remain with us for a lifetime.

Perhaps that is what Onam ultimately celebrates.

Not merely the return of Mahabali. But the return of people to one another. And sometimes, in that finding our way back to those we love, we also find our way back to ourselves.

Happy Onam🙏