One of the best celebrations I look forward to every year is Onam. Onam is a festival of my home town in India.It is in memory of a king who ruled. We believe he comes once every year to see his people. The night before the celebration, some people go to the hall we are using and set it up. They move benches for people to sit on, get a banner for the stage, get tables ready and they blow up loads of balloons for decoration. The prettiest part is they draw a circle (not too big) and draw patterns with chalk. The circle is filled with colourful flower petals. On the day we all wear traditional clothes.The girls wear sarees, churidars, long dresses or skirt and blouse and the boys wear shirts and mundu or pants. Everyone heads to the hall . After everyone is settled, we wait for dancing. A few weeks before Onam, the people who who want to dance gather at someone's house a learn a routine to Indian music. There's around four age categories: the small kids around 4-6, a bit older 7-12, there's teens and if the older teens want they can join an adult group. After singing and dancing, we have food. We have vegetarian food. Not everything has to have vegetables but nothing can have meat. Close to the end we play some games like musical chairs, egg and spoon race, bite the biscuit, tug a war and a balloon game where we tie a string to our ankle with a balloon at the other end and we have to pop other people's balloons by stepping on the balloon without popping our own or stepping outside the circle! I was the champion last time. It is great fun. Tug of war is also lots of fun but the boys have an advantage because they wear proper shoes with grips and have loads of leg room while the girls wear flats and long dresses. Still it is great fun. Finally, everyone gets their belongings and the people who organised it say an ending speech. Everyone helps clean up and we go home feeling very happy.
Anjali, Rang 6
Anjali, Rang 6
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