: Those among the several hundreds of Malayalis in Erode who preferred to remain here without making a trip to their native places due to personal compulsions celebrated their festival of harvest at their homes with small get-togethers.
Some of the Malayali families chose to remain at homes every year due to rigorous academic schedule of children or for other reasons. And they did all they could to celebrate the festival with the same spirit as in their native places.
Clad in traditional saris, women made ‘Pookalam’ with exquisite floral patterns and performed ‘Thiruvathirakali’ before engrossing themselves in preparing festival delicacies with coconut oil.
So what if Wednesday was not a holiday. Most of the Malayali students remained at home for the celebration. A day’s leave hardly mattered for them.
A good number of bakeries run by Malayalis were either closed or were kept open only for a few hours in the morning. The mode of celebration of the festival is same every where, and hence the place where people are does not matter, according to Vinod, an employee of a bakery in the city.
Nevertheless, people like him have more to look forward to in the coming weeks. For, the festival will be celebrated with pomp by the Kerala Samajam Charitable Trust in the city. The celebration by the Trust has been an annual affair for decades.