Greater Aust in Malayalee Associat ion

SEPTEMBER 2012 VOL. VIII, ISSUE 2

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Greater Austin Malayalee Association Registered Non-Profit Organization

2012 BOARD President: ........................Ajith Varghese Vice President: ....................Soosan Anil Secretary: ................................ Lisa Paul Treasurer: ......................... Kiran Divakar

DIRECTORS: Animon JoseBeno Mathew

Dhev KollannurJithin Sasidharan Leena Mathew

Manu MuraliNithin Thomas

Ravi RamachandranSabarish Ihsmveetil

Sajan LukoseSebi Paul

Sijith GangaSuresh Warrier

Ullas Pazhayaveetil

2011 OFFICERS:President: .................................Anil ThomasVice President: ........................ Raji JohnsonSecretary: ..................................... Hari MonyTreasurer: .............................Dhev Kollannur

DIRECTORS:Ajith Varghese

Ann MathenBeno MathewKiran Divakar

Lisa PaulMansi MenonManu Murali

Ravi RamachandranRoshan Chacko

Sabarish IhsmveetilSanthan Parameswaran

Sebi PaulSijith GangaSoosan Anil

Suresh WarrierTinu Mathew

ABOUT GAMA: The Malayalees in the Greater Austin area have organized several community events over the last fifteen years. During the 2004 Christmas meeting, Thomas Cherian (Thampachen) took the initia-tive in recruiting several volunteers to form such an or-ganization. Through their efforts, GAMA is now formally registered as a non-profit organization.

MEMBERSHIP: We invite you to join GAMA, and encourage you to actively participate in our events. To keep this effort going, we need to have active involve-ment from many of you in the Board of Directors of GAMA. At present we have over 250 families who are members of GAMA. You can contact any of the GAMA directors if you wish to become a member.

NOTE: Registering on the website does not make you a GAMA member.

Contact us: www.gama-austin.com

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Decoding the Ona Sadhya (Onam Feast)

This is the major attraction of the Onam Celebrations. There is a saying in Malayalam – “Kanam

Vittum Onam Unnanam”. It means you should sell everything if needed to have the Onam Feast. Ona sadhya will be served at all Malayalee homes on all 10 days and on the Thiru Onam day there will be four types of Adapradhaman. The food will be strictly vegetarian and it will always be served on plantain leaves. The elaborate meal will contain 11 to 13 dishes. There is a fixed order for serving the meal and a set place to serve the various dishes on the leaf.

The legend of the Onam spread is mighty. Few will not discuss their favou-rite version of the payasam or pradhaman. Some prefer their sarkara uperi (jaggery coated banana chips) over the banana chips and no one will dispute the tasty pachadi. For first-timers to Onasadhya, the range of dishes can seem puzzling. Remember as in most cultures, there’s an order to the food served and how it’s to be eaten. It follows the simple logic of treat-ing the different tastebuds and of symbolic gestures to the general prosperity we en-joy.

Onasadhya is typically served on a ba-nana leaf. With the items being placed from left to right. First to be served will be the side-dishes, expect these to outnum-ber the main items. Simple way to iden-tify them is to go by the consistency. The thicker sauces, the accompaniments like salt, lime, papadam, banana chips, fried dry curd chillies all line-up here. Have your curries with the red rice, then the samb-har and rasam with white rice. End with payasam and bananas.

Side-dishes includeKurukku Kalan: A thick preparation made

using curds and raw banana or yam.Olan: You use red or white pumpkin and

texture it with coconut milk and coconut oil.

Avial: The iconic mixed vegetable dish. There’s also the fusion Malayali band

that goes by the same name.Elisseri: A raw banana or yam dish.Pachadi: Not to be missed. This concoc-

tion uses curd and raw mango or onion which is spiced with green chilli and fla-voured with coconut.

Kichadi: A sweet and distinct item that has the taste of pineapple, curd, coconut and green chillies.

Stew: Potatoes cooked in coconut milk.Chenna Uperi: Yam cooked in coconut

milk.Puliinchi: A chutney made with tamarind

pulp, green chillies, ginger, jaggery and releases mixed flavours.

Sarkara uperi: A yummy snack too; ba-nana chips coated with jaggery. It’s tough to get your fingers off this.

Naranga: White lime pickle, Papadam, Ba-nana chips, Masala Kari.

Main dishes includeKalan: A watery curry made with raw ba-

nana or yam. It’s thicker version, Kuruk-ku Kalan is a side-dish.

Elisseri: Much like Kalan, the thicker kind is a side-dish and the watery dish made

with raw bananas goes with the rice, sambar and rasam.

SweetsChoose from a variety or enjoy all. Palada Pradhaman (Payasam): Rice flakes

cooked in cow milk, sugar, ghee, dry ginger and jeera.

Ada Pradhaman: Similar to Palada Prad-haman, here jaggery and coconut milk make the lipsmacking difference.

Pazhanurukku: Steamed bananas made sweeter with jaggery. Significance of Atham

Atham Pathinu Pon Onam. It means Counting 10 from Atha Nakshathram (Astham in Tamil) when the Onam will be celebrated. The day of Atham in the Malayalam month of Chingam, marks the beginning of Onam season and each of the next 10 days thereafter has its own significance. The making of Pookkalam (Floral Carpet) starts on this day. The Pookkalam will get big-ger every day and on the Thiruonam day it turns out to be the largest.

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Method:Heat 1 Tbsp of ghee  (in a non-stick

pan) and add the  mango pulp and sugar.Stir it till the sugar is completely dissolved.Bring it to boil.Reduce the heat.(Cover it if starts to splatter).

Simmer for around 40 minutes (may be more depending upon the quantity of man-

go pulp) stirring once every 10 minutes.Once it stops spluttering   add the re-

maining ghee little by little and simmer for another 20-30 minutes along with   cashews stirring   once every 3-4 min-utes  until the whole mixture changes color and becomes glossy.

Tips: Do not cook more than that. Other-

wise the halwa might turn out hardThere is no food color added. The color

should change by itself to dark  Switch off the flame add the powdered

cardamom mix well and pour the halwa into a greased plate.

Allow it to set for 2 hrs. and then cut it into desired shapes.

Mango Halwa RecipeRipen Mangoes – 6nos.(HEB Big

mangoes) peeled and pureed in a blender

Fresh Coconut Milk – from half a coconut – 4-5 tbsp. (can be substi-tuted with canned coconut milk.)

Note 1: If you are using fresh coconut milk do add water while you extract the milk. (optional): You can mix  1 tsp of cornstarch to the coconut milk before adding it to the mango pulp.

Sugar – 1.5 cups or more   (depend-ing upon how sweet the mangoes are you can adjust it)

Ghee - 6 tsp or more if you like Cardamom – 5 nos Cashews – 50 gms (more if you want

to garnish) 

Modern day OnamSome elders remember their olden days

with nostalgia and observe that the Onam celebrations have changed over the last few decades. Some look at the modern day Onam cel-ebration as more of a Gov-ernment function than as a family function. This may be due to the disappearance of family bonding, joint family system and the emergence of nuclear families. It is part-ly true that the modern day Onam is celebrated with a shopping spree followed by ready to eat sadhyas and watching movies in televi-sion sitting at home.

But one can never disagree that despite the widespread commercialization of the Onam festival, it is still bringing people and families together. So one can conclude

that the excitement and the feeling of oneness that Onam brings among people still re-main intact.

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By Malavika Perinchery9th Grade, Vandergrift High SchoolAustin, TX

Last sum-mer my p a r e n t s

sent me and my brother off to

spend some time with our maternal grand-parents in Kerala. I love a lot of things about Kerala. I love the constant rainfall and the greenery. I love how palm trees are almost everywhere. I love the food, too. Every rose has its thorn, though. And for me, India’s ‘thorn’ is bugs. Namely, spi-ders.

In Kerala, spiders aren’t just common, they are abundant. They aren’t your harm-less, inch long spiders in Austin. They are these gargantuan brown tarantulas that eat those other spiders as a snack. Not only do I have a fear of these spiders, but whenever I see one, I can’t stop screaming incred-ibly loudly.

So naturally, to avert my fear of a spider creeping on me when I was in the bathroom, I had my wonder-ful grandpa check the bathroom for me before I had to use the bath-room. I constantly had him going in there to check it out to make sure that no spiders, roaches, or other disgusting bugs. Better safe than sorry, right?

I think that now is a good time to mention that my grandpa does happen to have a little bit of a vision problem. He has glasses, but most

of the time they sit on his head while he roams the house searching for them. He never admitted this issue to anyone, and so I never really knew that he had terrible eyesight. I figured he might have a slight little problem. Boy, was I wrong.

One day, I asked him to go into the bath-room to check for any spiders or other bugs that might have gathered there. He came out and he said confidently, “Noth-ing to worry about. No spiders whatso-ever.” No spiders whatsoever. With his confident reassurance, I went into the bathroom. That was a mistake I would later regret. After I had washed my hands, I saw that on top of the towel sat the big-gest, ugliest, fattest brown tarantula ever. I went ballistic.

I don’t really remember when I stopped screaming, all I know is that my grandma was on the phone to my parents when this little charade occurred and came run-ning because she thought I was hurt. Who wouldn’t be, after seeing that giant thing sitting calmly on the wall? It could have eaten me!

But of course, my grandma doesn’t classify being nearly eaten to death by a tarantula as being seriously injured. She told me to stop being so silly and went back to her phone call. I went straight to my grandpa, ready to talk about the little situation. That’s when I noticed his glasses were on his head, not perched on his nose like they should be. I couldn’t believe it. He had probably skimmed the bathroom and not even noticed the spider! How could I get upset at him for that?

So, I told him about the problem in the bathroom and he went to check on it. He tried killing it but it only fell from the towel and scurried under the sink. My grandma was eventually able to get it out of there and she told me that I was too old to be worried about such little things. Little? It was the size of my face! But I was thankful that she did kill it so I didn’t argue. How-ever, I was a lot more careful after that little incident. Instead of having only my grand-pa check the bathroom, I had everyone in my family check it. After all, I wasn’t going to let a spider blindside me again.

The Not So Itsy-Bitsy Spider

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May this festival of Onam fill your life with Happiness and Joy! Wishing You All A Very

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