Younger generation prefers to eat out Onam sadya

Pune: For Nikita Majid, this is her first Onam back home after marriage and she is enjoying getting ready, complete with the off-white Kasavu saree, with strings of jasmine on hair and gold jewellery as she goes to offer prayers at the Shree Ayappan temple in Rasta peth

Pune: For Nikita Majid, this is her first Onam back home after marriage and she is enjoying getting ready, complete with the off-white Kasavu saree, with strings of jasmine on hair and gold jewellery as she goes to offer prayers at the Shree Ayappan temple in Rasta peth.

Onam decorations at Rasta peth Ayyappa temple in Pune, on Wednesday. Younger generation with nuclear family prefer to eat Onam sadya in restaurants than make it at home. (SHANKAR NARAYAN/HT)

“My husband Riyaz Jaleel and I live in Dubai and this is the first time we are in Pune to celebrate Onam with my sisters. It is a wonderful feeling to be together with the family,” she said.

Shani Naushad, her sister, looks at the pookalam (colourful arrangement of flowers laid on the floor), a tradition popular in Kerala and followed as a ritual in every Keralite household during the ten-day Onam celebrations.

“This year is special as all my sisters have flown in from Oman and Dubai, joined by few of my close friends. We opted to reserve a table at a new Malayali restaurant in Vimannagar. It is a trend now even in Kerala to go out to eat the special Onam sadhya. The sadhya forms an integral part of Onam, the festival of joy and happiness,” said Shani.

Regina Ranjeet has been busy catering and running her café R&R in Aundh. “This year there are several orders and bookings to eat at the café for sadhya, an elaborate feast consisting of dishes prepared by using seasonal vegetables. This is central to festive celebrations as a reflection of the season’s spirit. There is a popular saying in Malayalam that one must have the Onam meal even if it requires selling their property. We are serving it in a traditional way, on a banana leaf, with as many as 26 dishes. These include the yogurt-based pachadi; olan, a dish made with white ash gourd and black-eyed peas; thoran, a Malayali staple of stir-fried vegetables and grated coconut, and sambhar and papads, and the special dessert, payasam.”

For Junaid Mohammad, who lives in Oman, coming back to Pune for the festival brings in a lot of joy. “The Onam sadhya packs in spicy, sweet, salty and sour flavours and nowadays with nuclear family, we prefer to eat this in restaurants than make it at home,” he said.

Raghu Nair, manager, Ayyapan temple, “The older generation still wants to prepare and serve the Onam sadhya at home while the youngsters prefer to eat out instead of going through the whole rigorous hours of preparing more than 20 dishes.”