Here’s an extract from the book I’m writing on this subject.

Pwnam – A Study:
On the 46th year Golden Anniversary celebrations (yeah, we do things early) of Onam, I'm glad to present this well researched study on our beloved festival.
History:
The story dates back to a few centuries (46 years from now, to be precise) to the days of young Tinu in a small town called kammanasherry near Ottapalam. He wanted to be a vegetarian and explore the world like a hippie. One day, he had enough of everything here and travelled to the moon. That day is now celebrated as Onam. Mallus from all around the world celebrate this day every year by getting their housewives and mothers to cook everything vegetarian that they know, on the same day. This feast was called Onam Sandhya in the early days implying they’ll cook all day and eat in the evening (Sandhya in Sanskrit means evening). Like I mentioned before, we like to do things early, so we started getting up early to cook and eating the meal for lunch itself. The present generation calls it Onam Sadhya. Note that in Bali (an active volcano in Indonesia) people celebrate the assassination of over a hundred Kangaroos that tried to invade their territory, but it’s in no way related to our Onam. 

Tinu-on-the-moon Timeline:
• 10 years before the breakout of Vietnam War which took place after Abraham Lincoln slept with Yoko Ono and gave birth to Boutros Boutros Ghali.
• 25 years before Karan Johar’s trilogy of two movies where he explores his sexuality. First, the gay pride smash-hit Kabhi Kundi Kabhi Bum, then the movie about how he turned asexual like Hydra and Michael Jackson with the critically acclaimed No Entry.
• 38 years after Mangal Pandey refused to bite Queen Victoria’s bum.
• 6 years before Louis Armstrong won Tour de moon and became the first non-mallu to set foot on moon.
• 30 years before mallus learnt computers and Spoken English and told Americans "All your job are belong to us".

So where's Tinu now?

Good question. We keep hearing from the now legendary Tinu (fondly called the Seventh son of seventh thaatha by the residents of Silent Valley) every now and then. He's running a chain of Kairali restaurants, Tea Stalls and Bakeries there in the moon and has invested majorly in Josh Kuda (Kuda = Umbrella for those of you from above Hubli-Dharwad) whose factory is located in the Sea of Tranquility, the highly populated Industrial Capital of Moon, once known as the Garden City. Here's a pic of his with Louis Armstrong that was shot back in 1969. He was glad to send it to us through MSN messenger a while back.