Onam – a myth?

We celebrate Onam in honour of Mr. Mahabali, the Asura king of ancient Kerala.  As per mythology, Asuras are considered as brutal, boorish and indolent.  They invested most part of their time and effort in specious activities such as sleeping, drinking and dancing.  Mr. Mahabali was little different.  He believed in egalitarianism.  He was considered as an ideologist who first coined the term ‘socialism’ in this planet.  But Mr. Mahabali neither took patent for his thoughts nor proclaimed as a socialist.   There were no disparity in his country; everyone got the same brand and equal quantities of drinks, everyone had to perform same steps while dancing, everyone had to sleep the same amount of time.  All were well and good. 

On the other hand, the sagacious elements of our mythology – Devas – are considered as an embodiment of all virtues.  Devas followed a luxurious lifestyle.   All the actions of Devas are termed as a step towards implementing justice and peace.  Devas organized reality-shows in different parts of the planet and recruited the best performers to conduct leisure events in Devalogam.  Menaka and Urvasi are a few to name.  As per mythology, Devas are better organized than Asuras.  They believed in asset building, thus managed a hierarchical reporting structure.

The stakeholders of Devalokam were not pleased with its status quo. They were in search for innovative ways to amplify opulence in Devalogam.  The sovereign of Devalogam assigned specific responsibilities to each of his subordinates. Some of them were assigned for ‘market research’ and ‘competitor analysis’.  He was curious to find out places where people experience more luxury and happiness than in Devalogam. 

The investigative researchers from Devalogam travelled throughout the solar system and found Mr. Mahabali’s land was a peril to Devalogam.  They were amazed by the lifestyle, harmony and impartiality in Mr. Mahabali’s land. 

Though it was seen rosy to outsiders, Mr. Mahabali’s land was struggling with low liquidity.  Non-productive nature of Asuras contributed to the periodical surge in country’s operational expenditures.  The bottom line of country’s economic reports had no encouraging digits.  Mr. Mahabali had sleepless nights. The awful seen of his country’s economic situation had made him impatient.   He took a pencil and thought of drawing a line that divides his people such as BPL and APL, but his socialist ideologies were against plotting that line.  Some of his expert panel members advised him to disinvest shares of the non-performing industries in the country.  He even got a recommendation to allow FDI in the political parties.  As expected, Mr. Mahabali was against any of those thoughts that break the equality of his citizens.   Instead, he requested the citizens to co-operate with the king to reduce Government’s expenditures on providing drinks, mosquito coils, and entry pass for discotheques  (by controlling their specious activities such as drinking, sleeping, and dancing).  

Devas spent enormous amount of time in analyzing the data collected from Mr. Mahabali’s land and had enough brainstorming sessions.  The easiest way to surmount any threat is to destroy it.  Finally, Devas had decided to invest in Kerala’s real-estate sector.  Thus our land got the name – God’s own country.  They also envisioned a real-estate boom in Kerala and an opportunity for long term capital gain.  

The inborn prejudice had backtracked Devas from directly approaching Mr. Mahabali for the deal.  Fancy dressed members from the Devalogam approached Mr. Mahabali for the land and embittered him with forged deal conditions.  The innocent ideologist – Mr. Mahabali – was cheated by Devas.  While leaving his kingdom, Mr. Mahabali pleaded in front of Devas for a permission to visit his country once in a year.   Mr. Mahabali requested his citizens to keep equality, unity, and harmony among themselves.

Devas agreed to Mahabali’s last wish and permitted him to visit his kingdom once in a year.  We, the loyal citizens of our old Asura King, still maintain equality and harmony in front of beverages outlets.   After all, Onam is one of the revenue generating festivals for our state.  In this era of economic slowdown, each one of us has a responsibility to contribute for the survival of day to day Government activities.   Let’s wait and watch, whether we will attain the target of Rs. 5,000,000,000/=  from the state beverages corporation in this festival season.  Sept. 1^st and 2^nd being holidays, financial analysts had already expressed doubt in attaining the target.  This adds more excitement in following the day to day digits in Onam season, just like watching a 20-20 match.

Yes, we are celebrating Onam in honour of Mr. Mahabali, the Asura king of ancient Kerala.