Shashi Tharoor’s Vienna Onam celebration has everything: From borrowed clothes to curious Austrians

There are many ways to celebrate Onam.

You could have a sadya. Arrange a pookalam. Put on a mundu. Gather the Malayali diaspora.

Or, if you are Shashi Tharoor, you could do all of that in Vienna — wearing clothes borrowed for the occasion — while curious Austrians look on.

The Congress MP joined a belated Onam celebration at the Malayali-run Prosi restaurant in Vienna over the weekend and later posted photographs and videos from the gathering.

And, naturally, the internet had opinions.

Why was Shashi Tharoor celebrating Onam in Vienna?

The event was organised by members of the Malayali community in Vienna at Prosi, a Malayali-run restaurant.

Tharoor, who was visiting Austria, said he had been invited to the celebration and decided to join in. He also visited the Vienna headquarters of the World Malayalee Federation during his trip, where he is the organisation’s chief patron. The federation says its network now extends across more than 170 countries.

The Onam celebration itself appears to have been very much a community affair — complete with traditional attire and festive proceedings — rather than an official event hosted by the Indian embassy.

And then came the fashion subplot.

Why did Shashi Tharoor borrow his Onam clothes?

Because apparently even a politician with a wardrobe cannot always pack for every possible festival emergency.

Tharoor said he borrowed clothes for the occasion, posting photographs of himself in traditional attire from the Vienna celebration.

That detail quickly became one of the more charming parts of the story. Kerala’s harvest festival had travelled thousands of kilometres, and Tharoor had essentially assembled the dress code at the last minute.

As he put it in his post, the gathering also attracted “a fair number of curious Austrians.”

In other words: Vienna got a little Kerala for the weekend.

Was this actually Onam season?

Well... technically, no.

Tharoor himself pointed out the calendar problem.

In another post, he said he “refrained from pointing out” that Onam in Kerala and elsewhere in India had ended more than 10 days earlier.

But this is hardly unusual for diaspora celebrations.

When a festival travels across continents, calendars sometimes have to make room for weekends, work schedules and the availability of an entire community. A festival that is tied to a particular date at home can become something slightly more flexible abroad.

The Vienna Onam was late. The enthusiasm, apparently, was not.

(With inputs from yMedia and agencies)