Onam aashamsakal!

"The banana leaf adds something yummy to the food", she said. My firstborn. After polishing off her third Onam sadya of the week. My mallu-mom heart swelled with pride! Mission one is accomplished!

On a normal day, getting this child to eat rice and curry requires negotiation skills worthy of an international peace summit. We argue. We plead. We threaten. We bargain. We pull out pretty much every parenting tactic in the book. But somehow, for the third time this week, she asked for seconds of the exact food she spends the rest of the year despising.

Rice. Tons of curries. Pickles. Olan, Beetroot pachadi. Pineapple erusseri. Upperi. Crushed pappadoms mixed into everything. One dish after another, happily being relished. The only thing she continued to stay away from was the payasam. I will forgive her for that one.

Payasam, I admit, requires a certain kind of passion. The kind that develops after years of training your taste buds to understand that yes, after consuming enough food to feed a small village, what you really need is a bowl, or three, of something sweet.

So, out of sheer curiosity, I asked her. “What’s different? Why does the food taste better this week?”

Without missing a beat, she said: “The banana leaf adds something yummy to the food.”

I mean... come on!!

The first two times, it wasn't even a banana leaf. It was paper painted to look like a banana leaf! Apparently, authenticity is optional. Presentation is everything.

At this rate, I should just start serving all her meals on banana-leaf-shaped paper. If that's what it takes to make rice and curry irresistible, I am willing to make the sacrifice. And hey! Less cleanup for me. But underneath all the amusement, there was a much bigger part of me quietly bursting with pride.

Project One has officially been onboarded into the Mallu craze. And that means more to me than she probably realizes.

I love sadya! For me, it has never been just food. It is nostalgia, taste, tradition, and celebration all served together on one leaf. I will never say no to an opportunity for sadya, and when it is Onam or Vishu, there isn't even a question. One thing I have always wanted for my children is for them to carry a little love for my roots with them. I haven't exactly succeeded in getting them to fall in love with Indian outfits. That project remains firmly in the implementation-challenges phase. But festivals? I think I am slowly winning.

They are beginning to look forward to the celebrations. The gatherings. The flowers. The performances. And, perhaps most importantly, the food. It feels like a small win today. But I think it could be a huge one someday. Because many, many years from now, when they are grown and living lives of their own, perhaps far away from home, I hope these are the things they suddenly find themselves missing.

I hope a sadya makes them think of home.

I hope the smell of a familiar curry transports them back to our kitchen. I hope an Onam song makes them remember noisy celebrations, ridiculous amounts of food, pookalams that took far longer than expected, and a mother who insisted that these traditions mattered.

Because when I came here all those years ago, by myself, festival seasons made me ache for the familiar. I craved Mallu company. Mallu food. Someone to watch Malayalam movies with. Someone who knew the songs. Someone who understood the jokes without needing them explained. I missed the effortless belonging of celebrating with people who simply knew. Maybe that is why creating these memories for my children matters so much to me now.

I am not just teaching them how we celebrate Onam. I am quietly trying to give them something they can find their way back to. A little piece of home they can carry wherever life takes them. As for the remaining members of this cultural assimilation project:

Kiddo #2: Basically a replica of me when it comes to food. Zero concerns there. That one was born ready for sadya!

Kiddo #3: Still at the developmental stage where our primary Onam objective is establishing that the paper banana leaf is, in fact, not part of the meal and should not be eaten! But we will get there.

So here we are, grateful for yet another Onam celebrated together. As a family. As a community. With flowers, laughter, dance performances, chaos, friends, and the much-loved sadya. The pookalam at home is still a work in progress. But my heart is already very, very full! And somewhere between the crushed pappadoms, the pretend banana leaves and that unexpected request for seconds, I think a tiny piece of Kerala found its way into my daughter's heart. Onam aashamsakal!