If we look at the Indian calendar, almost every day is a festival. Each region has its favourites and one of the main festivals of India is Onam. This festival comprises music, boat race, and the Kerala special Sadhya meal. Onam celebrations in Delhi are an old tradition. In fact, Sadhya meal is served at various South Indian restaurants during the festivals of Onam or Vishu.

Onam in Delhi

India is often called the land of festivals. This is no surprise since the language and culture in India change every few kilometers in India. Each ethnicity has their own set of festivals of celebrations and we have the shared heritage of celebrations around the year.

One of the most popular festivals of South India is Onam. Originating in Kerala, Onam is the annual harvest festival celebrated in the month of August or September with music, boat race, and Sadhya. Onam rituals continue for 10 days and are a holiday in that state. Keralites or Malayalis outside Kerala also celebrate Onam with enthusiasm. Onam celebration in Delhi not only involves Malayalis but also anyone who wishes to experience some Onam traditions.

Onam 2020 falls next week – 22nd August to 2nd September and makes us nostalgic. We have been part of Onam in Delhi in earlier years and thoroughly enjoyed the celebration. Particularly the Sadhya is no less than a gastronomical journey. In case you didn’t know, Sadhya is a pure vegetarian meal from Kerala that is served during festivals and ceremonies. Having Onam Sadhya in Delhi has been a high point of our experience. It is like culture travel going through the route of our bellies.

Where to have Sadhya or Onam food in Delhi

If you are wondering where can you have Sadhya in Delhi, well, there are many options. To the best of our knowledge, Zambar, Mahabelly, Sanadige, Kerala House and Kerala Hotel serve Sadhya meals during Onam. Our most memorable experiences of Onam and Sadhya are at Red FM’s South Side Story event organized in the year 2019 where the restaurant Mahabelly hosted Sadhya. We also enjoyed Sadhya at Zambar, Ambience Mall, Gurgaon. Let us share those stories with you.

South Side Story Sadhya by Mahabelly

It was an experiential Onam for us last year. To promote regional culture and music, Red FM has been curating a host of events in the country. To bring forth the beauty of traditional Kerala to Delhiites, they organized South Side Story around the time of Onam 2019. We collaborated with Red FM for this event held at the beautiful Zorba on MG Road.

When we reached the event on a bright Sunday, the Onam enthusiasm was almost tangible! Extremely beautiful and well-manicured lawns along with amazing flower decorations in many colours greeted us at the venue. We got a traditional style welcome with flowers and sandalwood paste dot on our forehead.

Guests at the event were surrounded by everything Kerala… from Kathakali-painted faces, to tiger-painted Puli Kali dancers of Kerala, to the beating of drums and men and women in off-white and golden Kasavu saris and Mundus, the ceremonial dhotis of Kerala. The women also wore jasmine flowers in their hair. It was tough to believe we were in Delhi and not somewhere in Kochi.

The Onam Sadhya meal was part of the event. It has been curated by Mahabelly, a popular Kerala food restaurant chain in Delhi NCR. We already had a sneak peek into their finger-licking Sadhya along with the Red FM team – Radio ka Rohan and RJ Henna a few days before Onam at the preview of South Side Story. Lucky for us, we were going to relish this Sadhya meal again here during Onam.

We made our way towards the dining hall that had rows of tables and chairs laid for guests. The diners were getting seated in batches and the feast reminded us of Durga Puja community lunch.

Sadhya is typically served on a banana leaf and eaten with fingers, no cutlery. A host of Sadhya dishes were served one after the other on our banana leaves. It was a riot of colours and flavours and our taste buds were dancing in pleasure.

There were myriad items at the Sadhya. The staple was plain boiled rice, served along with other dishes collectively called Kootan. This included curries like parippu, sambar, rasam, pulisseri and other dishes like kaalan, avial, thoran, olan, pachadi, kichadi, koottukari, mango pickle, pulinji, naranga achaar or lime pickle. More accompaniments such as papadam, plantain chips, banana, plain curd, and buttermilk were part of the platter. Rice pudding or payasam was served as dessert. We came to know an interesting trivia: each item had a specific place where it was served on the platter banana leaf.

Just like the earlier time, the food was delicious. It was rich yet not spicy and was a balance of tastes – salt, sweet, sour, and bitter.

Red FM’s South Side Story aimed to present not just the food, but music, art, and culture from Kerala in a very contemporary way. In any case, what’s an Indian festival without music? That evening they had bands Agam and Thaikuddam Bridge to showcase Carnatic progressive rock, pop, and electronic music. Soon we were going to attend another Red FM festival called The Yellow Taxi Project in Kolkata.

Thanks to Team Mahabelly and Team Red FM we had a gala time being part of this fabulous Onam celebration in Delhi.

Sadhya at Zambar, Ambience Mall, Gurgaon

Zambar is a coastal restaurant that would serve Kerala food in their initial years. Later, they opened up their menu to include cuisine from other southern states such as Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

We have dined at Zambar on many occasions and had a Sadhya meal here during Vishu, the Malayali New Year celebrated in mid-April every year.

The Sadhya meal was served on banana leaves. They did not provide any cutlery since Sadhya is traditionally had with hands. The elaborate fare comprised many kinds of relishes and pickles, vegetarian curries, the popular lentil soup sambar. Brown rice was the staple and sambaram or buttermilk was served towards the end of the meal. The dessert on this occasion too was rice pudding called payesham. As a characteristic to a coastal meal, green coconut water was served on the side.

We learnt many a Sadhya trivia that afternoon. A chef from Kerala guided us through Sadhya. The idea behind Sadhya was to alternate among various tastes from bland to sweet or sour to spicy during the course of the meal. For that reason, some of the dishes were simple, some sweet-sour like relishes or chutneys, and some Kerala special spicy (in moderation thankfully)! The food was light and resembled home-styled cooking. So much so, notwithstanding the long meal over more than an hour, we did not feel sluggish and the digestion system heaved sighs of relief. In fact, a whole banana was placed on the side of our Sadhya serving. The chef told us that consuming the raw banana aided metabolism.  We felt that typical to the traditional knowledge of Kerala, Sadhya was just not a meal but had its philosophy rooted in Ayurveda, the ancient medicinal system of India.

We feel so grateful that we hail from India, a colorful culture like no other. Every festival that we celebrate is a celebration of positivity, an act of gratitude, and a prayer for righteousness, peace, and happiness. The variety in a Sadhya meal reflects such a harmonious approach to dining. Sadhya is a unique experience where a variety of diverse items with very different tastes come together in the course of the meal. Such unity in diversity is what India stands for.

Independence Day is around the year and we are unanimous in this – we are proud to be Indians! Happy Onam!

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