Onam ... Ponnonam ..

Being the last Onam for which all of us will be present in office, everyone wanted to do something or the other to celebrate Onam. Rajeesh &Jithin chetans article ship period was coming to an end and Shini chechi was also due to leave soon for a better employment close to her native. But the problem was that all of us were busy with something or the other (office work that is, mind you :p) and no one was able to take charge and plan anything for Onam. Days went by fast and soon Rajeesh Bhai and Shini chechi left. The rest of us assured them we’ll be defiantely having celebrations in office and that they would have to compulsorily come and join us in it. Days went by, but still nothing had been planned and Onam was getting closer. Time was not on our side. Finally it came to stage that this was not going to work as none of us were free and agreed that we wouldn’t be having any Onam celebrations. Onam was on the 10^th of September, Friday. Sept 10^th and 11^th were declared as holidays by our Sir, much to all our delight. So Uthradam, Sept 9^th Thursday was to be our last working day before Onam. Ashwathy and Linda chechi had other commitments to attend to and were on leave. Shravan had been completing the auditing at M/s NAPC and Jithin Bhai had been doing the same at M/s Process Color. Shravan had completed his work and was back at office. MD of M/s Process color had declared 4 days of holidays for the staff at Process color, much to their wonder and delight. (They had never gotten more than 3 days… ever!!!) So Jithin Bhai was also back in office. So it was just the 5 of us at office for Onam – Me, Sujin, Shravan and Jithin Bhai and of course Sir.

 We hadn’t planned anything till now for Onam. So on Wednesday evening I thought why not all of us wear Mundu and come to office, after all its Onam! So I immediately called up Sujin and informed him of my suggestion and he agreed. Next I called Jithin Bhai. He said that he’ll think about it as he had not gone home that day as he had to finalise the work at M/s Process Color and present in before sir. The discussions between them had gotten over pretty late and he had decided to stay over at his friends place. Shravan was the next in line. But much to my frustration there was no answer from him. “He was out of coverage area”. So I decided to leave him a text message instead. The next day dawned in a matter of a few hours. I decided to wear my green Kurta along with the mundu, to office. Even though I was travelling by public bus wearing the very delicate mundu, I got to office without any problems :D. Next to arrive was Jithin Bhai. But much to my disappointment, he wasn’t wearing a mundu but was dressed in pants and shirt. He told me that he was not prepared for it as he had to stay over at his friends place.

Although I was disappointed, I put on a content face as I knew that Jithin Bhai had a valid reason and I proceeded to wait for the next person to arrive. Just then out of the blue Jithin Bhai said, “How about we put a Pookalam”. I was thrilled with the idea and we decided to plan as to how to go about it. What amount of flowers were needed, the design, the money aspect and most importantly, ‘how to handle SIR’! :p We needed to get his permission if we were to go about planning and making the Pookalam. Very honestly I didn’t think that our Sir would give in to the idea as the primary reason why we were there in office that day was to complete pending works (TAX AUDIT DEADLINE was fast approaching on the 30^th of September), otherwise we all would have been celebrating Onam at our respective homes. But here we were, going to spend the entire day doing absolutely no office work but making a Pookalam! We immediately googled for Pookalam designs and very soon we decided on a very simple but elegant looking design. Soon after, Sujin chetan arrived wearing a blue coloured shirt and a “vella mundu with blue coloured kara”. He looked more like some college union member to us! :D Nevertheless he looked real good in that! Immediately after, Shravan also arrived. We told them also about our Pookalam idea and they were also good with it. So the next thing on our agenda was to get Sir’s “approval”.

So, as soon as Sir arrived, all of us started pointing fingers at each other, as to who would put forward the idea to Sir and get his permission! While all our discussions were going on, Sir came out from his cabin to enquire what was going on. Maybe he had over heard us talking from his cabin! With a lot of hesitation as to what might be his reaction to our idea like, I decided to inform Sir of it. But much to our surprise Sir gave us the much needed “Green Flag”, which all of us were anxiously waiting for, that too without even considering it twice in his mind! :p Sir, seemed to have been pretty pleased with our small plan, after all its Onam. You must have some kinda celebration, right? ;) Soon, we were off to work. Shravan and Sujin were sent to get the flowers, while me and Jithin Bhai were to start on the design of the Pookalam. Within the next 45 odd minutes the Pookalam design was ready and so too were the Flowers. We, then over the next 2 hours proceeded to delicately towards putting the flowers in their designated areas in the Pookalam. Before we knew it, we were on the home stretch and time had also flown by. It was nearly 2.00pm. By 2.30 we successfully completed the Pookalam and proceeded to the Photo shoot! :p It was by 3.00pm that we first contemplated on what we were going to have for Lunch!!! Our tummies were really growling. The only thing which we had since breakfast was a packet of banana chips! We knew, the option of an Onam Sadhya was out of the question. It was probably too late. So it was decided, just like the last time, we were to have “Chicken Biriyani” as our Onam Lunch.

The last time we had Onam celebrations at office, we had, Chicken Biriyani & Chocolate Shake!! So we proceeded toward Malabar Biriyani Hut on Kaloor-Kadavanthra Road to quench our hunger! We made an order for 3 Chicken Biriyani’s and Chappathi with Gobi Machurian (for Shravan). But then came the words which we really didn’t want to hear from the waiter – “No Biriyani’s”. Damn! Argh! :l . What a day this was turning out to be! No food?? Just then our waiter said he’ll go check if any rice is still left. Much to all our relief, he came back with Good news. Rice was available and they’d prepare a fry for us too, Chicken that is. So finally, our growling tummies would be soon getting a solution for their problems! While the food was being prepared, we decided to have a Lime Mint Coolers each. So food arrived. We dug in, food tasted great, although the chicken was a bit tough!.... So it turned out to be yet another Onam where we ended up having Chicken and not the traditional SADHYA! :P

To see the rest of the photos CLICK HERE