The Story of a Cherished Tradition
The Holy Week is one of the most sacred times of the year for Christians around the world as we commemorate the events that constitute the pascal mystery of Christ — his passion, death, and resurrection. It begins with Palm Sunday (in 2021, when this article’s written, on Mar 28). Various cultures and ethnicities prepare for and welcome this week in their own way. For instance, the Saturday preceding Palm Sunday, the Great Sabbath before Passover is celebrated as Lazarus Saturday by the Eastern Orthodox Church, or Shabbat HaGadol by Jewish Christians. This is based on the liturgical evidence of raising Lazarus six days before Passover in Bethany where Jesus was, before entering Jerusalem. In another region of the world, in certain parts of India’s southwestern state of Kerala, catholics uphold the tradition known in the local language as Kozhukatta Shaniyazhcha — a traditional I finally celebrate again in my first Holy Week with my family in four years.
On the Saturday (Shaniyazhcha= Saturday) before Palm Sunday, the popular rice flour based sweet dumpling filled with grated coconut and jaggery, kozhukatta, is made. There are many different stories passed down as oral history from our grandparents and parents, sometimes straight from the kitchen, associated with cooking these dumplings on this particularly day. One version of the story focusses on the symbolism of the dumplings. They represent big rocks (kozhitha kattai) that were hurled at Christ and the hardships he suffered from his own people, which is the focus of the season of Lent — remembering Christ’s sufferings for mankind, the pain he bore for our sins which we repent through prayer, fasting and almsgiving. The other version of the story personifies the dumplings in a very different manner. When left overnight, the filling starts oozing out. In stories, this is portrayed as the dumplings crying, expressing their grief over the fate of Jesus who has just entered Jerusalem foreseeing his death. While sweetness of the food directly contrasts the bitterness and the tragedy of what takes place later in the week, to me it symbolises the sweet, Good News of salvation and new life that comes with the resurrection of the Lord on Easter Sunday.
While I savour the dumplings in the last few days of Lent, I recount the the joys and sorrows of not just the last few weeks of the season of sacrifice, but the last one year which has challenged me to a minimalistic lifestyle of gratitude and sacrifice as the Church once again gears up for a quiet Holy Week, in most places behind closed doors, in the pandemic that has still not left us.
