As someone who considers myself relatively well-traveled, I would say that a weekend isn’t enough to let travelers see even a small cross-section of a country’s culture, especially if that country is as rich and diverse as India. While I stand by that as a general rule, I can’t deny that our Making Theatre class’ recent trip to Kerala was impactful. I feel like recently I’ve lost my sense of wonder in travelling, and I am especially grateful that I was able to recapture a little of that through India. I was simultaneously honored to be travelling with Theater Mitu folks, who had laid such solid foundations and taught us to be so culturally sensitive in our interactions, and ashamed to find that I was in a country I knew so little about.
My first impression outside the airport was that there were so many people. Even in the wee hours of the morning. We arrived in the town of Kollam at dawn at the end of the Mallayalam new year. Traditionally, the eldest woman in each household builds a colorful shrine, sleeps next to it, and then wakes each family member up individually and brings them to the shrine so that they start the year by seeing beauty. I woke up to my sleeping classmates drooling on the seats of the bus around me, but…I suppose the kind of camaraderie we have is beautiful in its own way.
After a few hours sleep at the hotel (and the obligatory exclamations of, “Oh my gosh, guys! We’re in INDIA!”), we had our first introduction to Indian food (I’ve never tasted a banana so sweet) and informally met Gurukkal and Chechi, who were to be our teachers. Our visit came as the continuation of a long relationship between these masters and our professor, Ruben Polendo, and the company of Theater Mitu. After hearing so much about them, I somehow expected Gurukkal and Chechi to be stern and intimidating. While they were certainly diginified (and, we would soon learn, absolutely formidable in the practice of their art forms), they were also unpretentiously human and accessible to us. This was invaluable to us in our first exposure to kalaripayattu and mohiniattam.
Kalaripayattu is a performative martial arts from which virtually all other similar traditions stem. It’s holistic, incorporatic what I would call yogic elements with healing and, of course, combat. It’s practiced in a kalari, which serves as both temple and training ground. A couple of days practicing even the basic stances was enough to make muscles I didn’t even know existed sore, but it was well worth it. I’ve never denied the fact that I’m a clumsy person, but I’ve never felt as far from gracefulness as when I watched Chechi perform mohiniattam. When executed properly, the intricate eye movements, facial expressions, gestures, and narratives of this traditional art form are captivating…but to an someone with virtually no dance experience it’s just frustrating and all I could do was try to stay in the attempt of the choreography. At the end of the experience, there was a demonstration staged just for us at the kalari…no exaggeration, one of the coolest things I’ve ever witnessed. Martial arts masters wielding flexible whip swords? Oh yeah.
Between encounters at the kalari, we ventured even further off the beaten track to witness some of the rituals associated with the new year. On the first night, a four-hour busride and a roadside bathroom stop brought us to the ruins of a temple in the middle of the jungle. And if anyone thought that wasn’t exotic enough, they were certainly awed by the rituals to the goddess Devi involving mediums, ostensibly in a trance possession by the gods, who wear huge, heavy headdresses and dance al l night…still trying to process exactly what spiritual phenomenon was taking place there.
The following evening, we were there for part of Kollam Pooram, celebrations involving long lines of elephants facing each other, each representing a local temple and displaying umbrellas and other icons they had made. Both lines are trying to outdo the other, but in typical Indian fashion, the point is not to authoritatively declare a winner but to give people something to talk about and debate for the rest of the night. One thing that made an impression on me was a huge tree in front of the Sri Krishnaswamy Temple which was covered in baskets. Apparently, couples hang the baskets on the tree when they want to have a child…the higher the basket, the more likely it is. Then Yannick told us he’d seen a similar, smaller tree (one of the only ones in the area since we’re both in the desert and in the city) covered in baskets and baby dolls…but it was recently cut down. I find that a really heartbreaking symbol of the displacement that so many of the migrant families here must feel.
The most comprehensive thing I could say to describe India to the people who’ve been asking me is that it’s deep. Rooted, and colorful, mysterious and profound. I struggled to blog about India only because there’s so much to process and so much that’s already been jotted down or come up in conversations with people that everything I wanted to write felt like repeating myself. And I think the fact that we’re still working through the trip and pulling it into the wider context of our lives is the mark of something truly impactful.
PS-This was the first time I've traveled without cell phone, iPod, laptop, or even cash and camera...they were quite suspicious when we said we didn't have ANY electronics at airport security. :) It was a fantastic and low-stress experience, and Inshallah I'll have some pics taken by the trip coordinators soon.
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