The vishu from my childhood.

For those who doesn't know what Vishu is,

Vishu is the Hindu new year festival celebrated by people of Kerala(India), which comes on the 'medam' month of the malayalam calendar(April 14th). The day of Vishu is initiated with the prosperous 'Vishu kani', the first thing to be seen in the early morning, in which the enriched fruits, vegetables,money and gold are kept along with the God Krishna. It's for the rest of the year to be like the Vishu kani; prosperous and blessed by the God. Then there will be 'Vishu kaineetam' , when all the elders present the younger ones with little amounts of money. Then at noon, there will be a delicious feast called 'Vishu sadhya'. Totally the Vishu day is supposed to jinx the rest of the year with its prosperity.

Vishu was the best part of my childhood. When I'm writing this down, just the day before Vishu I feel nostalgic about my childhood but more than that I'm deeply saddened by the fact about how time had changed this beautiful festival into a dull and spiritless one. I wonder about the irrefutable huge loss for today's children.
I know they don't even know what they are missing.
So I'm electronically documenting the warmth of those days for the future and the present and for the childhood I miss so badly.

When the school closes after the horrible annual exams by the end of March, I usually dump all the books in a corner and get rid of the school vibes initially, chanting to myself,
"I'm a Freeman finally."

Fantasizing about the cool things to do in the 65 days of summer vacation, the first thing that come across my mind is enquiring about the arrival of my cousins. Although I've 5 cousins and my brother sticking around for the entire vacation, the partner in crime trio includes my best cousin Manikuttan, my brother Akhil and myself. In those best days I was like 10 years old where as Mani was 10.5 years old. Akhil was 4 years younger than us, so we consider ourselves as his intellectually superior bosses. Mani, who is the younger son of my Aunt is settled at Chennai. My grandmother used to say that we were besties since toddlerhood. Well, he will roll eyes at this comment now but still he is my best brother.

For kids Vishu is mainly about fire crackers. It's double the excitement for us because on the Vishu day, in our particular region alone there is a festival by the Lord Krishna temple. It's called vishuvela. We'll get to buy awesome toys with our kaineetam money from the festival.
Anyway, the first step of fun with firecrackers begins with buying cape guns and cape bombs. Cape is like this small explosive roll of paper commonly red in color, it is about 10 cm long and includes 15 shots. There are round peices with single shot of these cape rolls available for throw bombs. The bench mark of a well spent vacation with cape guns is having atleast 2 of them broken. We each used to get a box of caperolls with a 100 of them in number inside. There are little round peices of cape rolls specially made for throw bombs. We would divide ourselves into different teams and play as gangsters. It was so much fun, even the hottest afternoons of the garish summer didn't seem to bother us.


We would wander all day in cycles keeping the guns inside our pockets pretending to be invincible.
The next thing was paambu gulika which meant Snake pills, it's just black pill like firecracker which vaguely forms into a black snake like figure. Amma used to chastise me for making black marks on the courtyard with snake pills.

After two weeks of fun, there comes wonderful night of April 13th, when we buy the firecrackers for the Vishu morning. It's like the most awaited moment of the whole scenario, we would be so much excited when my dad takes us to a temporary shop set up just for the Vishu season. There will be safest and the favorite of the children, old people and couch potatoes firecracker which is called as kambithiri. Then there are the beautiful fire pots, fire wheels, the chain crackers, country's favorite crackers made of palm leaves called ola padakkam, little round bombs, brand crackers such as Lakshmi bombs, butterfly crackers, awesome rocket crackers, colourful Chinese crackers boxes, etc.
The night's sky would be bright with the colors of rockets and Chinese crackers with strong random ticking like sounds in the sky. The faint smell of explosives in the air. Courtyards of neighborhoods brightening up in the light of kambithiris and fire pots. Truly a magical time.


We would sleep early to wake early in the Vishu morning.

The elders would be busy on making the Vishu kani as it's the first thing that should seen on the Vishu morning. I remember that I was so sleepless due to euphoria of everything that will be happening on the next day and I would desperately wish the time to pass soon and let it be the morning soon.

Morning, around 5 o'clock Amma and acha would wake us with love by closing our eyes gently with their hands so that we don't accidentally open our eyes. They will walk us to the pooja room where the Vishu kani lies. From the aroma of the Jasmine flowers and the vishu's own flowers of golden shower tree, I could easily feel the diminishing distance to Vishu kani. When the palms slowly move apart, I could forever remember how my heart fills with lots of feelings I can't put into words. I would feel the warmth of divinity hugged by the unconditional love of my dad and mom.
The next 2 hours would be pure madness. Crazily happy with the fire crackers. When it's over, I could totally feel the weight of an entire year vanished into a new beginning.

Amma would begin her usual, go and bath soon. Go to the temple atleast today!!

Then it's the kaineetam time. I would count the collection a hundred times, the new crispy currency in the little Mickey mouse wallet. Still fresh in my memory.

We would chill out till evening having the delicious sadhya with the special dessert payasam. The Vishu special movies would be played on the television channels and we would decide the movies to watch before 3 days itself. I used to constantly get mad on the long ads In between the movies.

The poothan of poothan and thira

Vishu is also the time for a cultural art form called poothanum thirayum which consists of about 5 people. 2 persons play the music while the poothan and 2 thiras play their art form. Another art form is the puppet show based on stories from Ramayana or Mahabharata which will be played on special stage in the middle of vast paddy fields called as koothumadam. 

koothumaadam

Before the play or koothu begins there will be fireworks. When the fireworks start people would come from all over the villages. But what I love about this is, the person who makes the fireworks called kathinas does his work in front of my home every year. So we kids get a chance to watch him making kathinas all day long. We would ask him all kinds of stupid questions.

The evening of Vishu day was fully on festive mode. There will be music, elephants, big color full panthal and lots of small toy shops. Me and Manikuttan were really crazy about laser lights those days. So we bought a set that contains a red laser light and 12 different tops which projects different figures. It was so much fun to watch the red dot traveling amazing distances.
Just like that the Vishu day will be over. The next morning I would wake up with a heavy heart. Time would go swiftly and again there comes the time for farewells. Cousins would be leaving to their places and I would be like so heartbroken for days.
I could never imagine a Vishu like today on those days. It's feels all dull and lame now. Everybody is busy with their lives, most of my cousins are working now. So they don't get many holidays and moreover Vishu is not that important for anyone now. Childhood was the thing that made everything feel better. I don't know if today's children love Vishu like I did or do they even have any festivals fun enough to love and remember forever! I don't know.

I'll have these memories with me until I die. I'll miss them too.

A vishu sky of 2014

Wishing everyone out there a very happy Vishu!