Onam celebration at Techmaax
A Pookalam, a Sadya, a tug-of-war nobody quite finished, and one good excuse to stop training for a day.
This Onam, the Techmaax team took a break from SAP modules and Java assignments to do what most of Kerala does this time of year — put together a Pookalam, dress up, eat too much, and just be around each other for a day.
Planning started early
Planning started about a week out. Someone put a message in the group chat asking who was bringing flowers, someone else started a separate thread about the Sadya menu, and by the time the actual day arrived, half the centre had already picked out what they were wearing.
The energy on campus felt surprisingly festive for a training centre: people checking flower availability, coordinating timings, and discussing who would take the first group photo in front of the Pookalam.
Building the Pookalam
Work on the floral design started early, before most of the regular sessions began. It went up right at the centre entrance and grew outward through the morning — marigold and chrysanthemum first for the base rings, then the smaller, more delicate flowers worked into the centre as the pattern came together.
A few people were making one for the first time, and it showed a little in how evenly their petals sat. Nobody minded. By mid-morning there was a small crowd standing around it, mostly debating whether the outer ring needed one more layer of colour before it was finished. It did.
Traditional wear, everywhere
Almost the whole centre showed up in traditional attire — mundu and kasavu sarees far outnumbering the usual work clothes. Walk past the training floor around midday and you would have found more people near the Pookalam taking photos than at their desks, which, for one day, felt exactly right.
The Sadya and the games
Lunch was served on banana leaves, the way it’s supposed to be, with people figuring out on the spot which corner of the leaf each dish goes in and getting mildly corrected by whoever grew up doing this every year. The spread covered the usual ground — sambar, avial, thoran, olan, a couple of payasams at the end — and the trainers’ room ran out of chairs faster than it ran out of food.
The afternoon turned into a loose set of games in the courtyard — musical chairs, a round of tug-of-war that both sides still claim to have won, and a lot of group photos in front of the Pookalam before the flowers started wilting in the heat. Somewhere in the middle of it, someone found a speaker and the games mostly stopped being games.
“I’ve eaten more olan in the past hour than I have all year—and honestly, I don’t regret a single bite..”
- Onam created a moment where learning, laughter, and togetherness mattered as much as the syllabus.
- The campus felt more connected because there was no distinction between trainer, student, and staff for a day.
- Festivals like Onam are proof that strong training culture also needs joy, ritual, and community.
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