The city's Malayalee community got together on September 17 to celebrate the sights, sounds, and colours of the Onam festival at a special programme organised by the Christchurch Kerala Association (CKA)—a non-profit catering to the needs of the Malayalee community living in and around the Christchurch since 2005.
Ajesh Jose, Secretary at CKA, informed, “Celebrations started at 10 a.m. with almost 200 of our members and the wider community attending the event. While there were few Malayalee dance and music performances, and games like tug of war and tongue twisters, the festival's highlight was the Pulikali dance performance put in by some of our members.”
Pulikali—or Kaduvvakali as it is also called—is an old high-energy dance form practised in Kerala, which fuses man and beast to make symbols done in bright, bold body painting.
The sold-out event had National List MP based in Port Hills, Christchurch, Nuk Korako, as the chief guest who shared with the gathering his excitement of getting to know the Malayalee culture first-hand and his happiness in seeing it thriving in New Zealand.