Around this time last year, chef Arun Kumar TR was in Kerala “looking for the Onam of [his] childhood”. On the day of the festival, his driver—a Mappila Muslim—had wanted to go home for a sadhya he would be eating with his family. A sadhya, Kumar had been surprised to learn, that would consist not of Mappila dishes but of traditional vegetarian items served on a banana leaf. “That showed me that the festival had penetrated different quarters and was now celebrated by all.” 

Originally a religious festival focused on the celebration of Vishnu, Onam underwent a gradual secularisation beginning in the decades when the movement for uniting Malayalam-speaking regions into Kerala gathered momentum. In the 1960s, when the communist government declared Onam a state festival encompassing all people, the legend of the asura king Mahabali became popular and Vishnu receded to the background.