Onam Extravaganza at School

What Onam means to me, is not the flowers, the folk songs nor the 'Pulikkali'. It's all about fun with friends. It's the once in a year moment to enjoy the most with your most valuable friends and celebrate the festival as a festival of friendship, not the old stories and hypes -- Well, that's the way it sounds for me.

Anyways, Onam came as the 'Kaala' of our mid-term exams. It was a seamless exam all through and gave a stiff idea about the upcoming term exams. Well, enough with exams already. This one's about the festive Onam celebrations we had at our most lovely Indira Gandhi Public School or IGPS (for the sake of less typing), Mambaram.

Onam at IGPS was always unique for us, the students of the same. It was one precious moment where there is nothing to study, nor to worry about. It's all about the celebration, the times you get to play with each other and work together to design a unique Flower carpet, a.k.a the 'Pookkalam'. And this year too, like every year, we enjoyed a lot surging about the aromas of flowers on the Onam day.

I dressed up in a lame 20th century party-wear which was lame in every way I saw it and rode to school via the School Bus with a part of my friends (Gladly, I didn't had pics of mine). The school looked very different today, always felt it throughout the day. Almost everyone was present that day as anybody who missed the Onam celebration is a total goof hereafter -- the person will miss out the tons of fun he/she'd be having the same day.

Well, enough with the poetic language. I don't know why but nowadays, I always write the same way. Now, back to the celebrations. The Onam celebrations started with a very pleasant folk song sung by the little stars of our school. I wish I could hear it out to you but unfortunately, we weren't allowed to bring any gadget to the school. I'd try to get it somehow and update the post later. Then, we rode of to our classes to start prepping for the 'Pookkalam' competition, a still prevailing tradition of Onam.

We were to compete with the +2 guys of our school. At sharp 9.30 AM, we began designing the Pookkalam. Well, not we, but the two brilliant designers of our class -- Anand Ramesh and Krithik Vimal Vijayan. They designed the Pookalam almost perfectly symmetrical with squares, circles and other weird designs which were perfect from every angle. Due to their great effort, we had a killer design to show off. Below is the blueprint of our Pookkalam. ;)Later, with everyone's support, we finished putting the flowers together and finally finished the Pookkalam by about 11.45 AM.

But Pookalam wasn't the only stuff the Onam celebrations packed. The most exciting feature was the yet another Traditional game of Onam, the 'Tug of War'. This one was conducted house-wise. Our school hosted four houses -- Ganga, Yamuna, Nila and Krishna. Each participating house would bring out about 6 members for the Tug of War. Naturally, I was selected for my house being Yamuna too.

I was part-excited, part-worried. I was just a lump of fat and never had experience in any hardcore sports event and this one, was pretty tough. But with a little confidence, I agreed to join the team. The brilliant designer, Krithik was also in my team. Lot was selected and we were to fight with Ganga in 3 continuous rounds to enter the finals. And the other one, Anand was in Ganga, our opposition team.

I stood at the rear end of the heavy rope and worn it round my body and tightened my hands on the rope. With a blow of whistle, the match began. With every strength I've got inside my lazy body, I pulled the rope as much as I could and kicked the ground back and back. With much amazement, we defeated Ganga in the first round. I was really tired but I couldn't take rest as the second round started instantaneously. We just needed to win this one to get into the finals. My body was very weak but just like each and every member of our team pulled the rope, I stood behind and moved back as much as I could resulting in a successive seamless win securing at least a second place.

I knew the finals were going to be really tough as we were to compete with Krishna, who defeated Nila just like we did 2-0. This time, my body couldn't move an inch. My hands shivered and I couldn't get a good grip of the rope. Nevertheless, Krishna had almost all the muscle-men of our school. Still, we had to try our luck. I sipped a little bit of water before beginning. My foot too were dry and got some scratches and injuries which I couldn't do anything about. So, the finals started. Just like before, I tried to pull the rope but with each scream, we were going forward and forward. They won the first round. And never to say, they defeated us rather easily in the next round and won the competition. Well, I was glad we were able to secure at least the second position.

The judges came in between and took note of the brilliant design of our class. Our category had two competitors only -- XI and XII. Thus, there were no second or third -- just first place was the primary target. And our design was flawlessly rendered by the two great designers with hardwork and support from the whole class. We also received delicious puddings which were yet another usual stuff of the Onam festival. I drank 5 glasses wholeheartedly but mine wasn't the record of the year. :)

In the end, we all came out to the veranda to hear the results. We had to get first as there was no other welcoming positions for out category. And boy oh boy, you should see their faces when the teacher announced  "Second prize for XII". We jumped and threw flowers all over the place with great joy as our class got the first position -- a rewarding one for the deserving designs of our masterminds.

Thus, another Onam passed and just like every year, it was joyous and festive for all of us, here. Some of our friends went out and relaxed at the Sea Park in Thalassery to chill out the hardwork they did in the morning in front of the setting sun. I missed it but Krithik snapped one and I couldn't simply post this excluding the awesome snap he took. Now there just one last step to end this snappy day --  a long sleep. Till then, Adios... Oh, and a Happy Onam! :)