gINKgo | Inspiring Conscious Travel | A July Travelogue | Vol 98 | August 2024
No summer's high...
Stevie Wonder
A July Travelogue
July was fervent and full. I changed my Pin Code (zip code) one more time. As life flows on the other side of 50 with less burden of people, places, things and thoughts, a promise I keep is to go where life leads. And for a travel professional, it is a busman’s holiday!
July turned out to be a month of creative pursuits, meeting extraordinary people in the proximity of art and poetry. And that is what this threshold brings to me. Between art in Kochi and Mumbai, to meditating in the Carpenter's Cave in Ellora to textiles, art and handicrafts in Ahmedabad and Hyderabad - I did much, or too little. But this is all my senses could experience, feel and hold - all at once. Sharing a few satisfying, or rather reinforcing, moments - at least in what I have built around me through Art. Travel. Nature. There may be others, but they will show up when there will be a sensory relevance, I’m sure.
My first few days were in Kochi looking into everyday art while staying at Baron’s Villa by Malabar Escapes in Fort Cochin. Graffiti called out to me from every moss-ridden wall as I walked the narrow roads, sparkling in the afterglow of the morning’s shower. A message here, a bunch or a bloom there, a man’s face, a familiar-looking lad, the bold stares of ‘insolent’ women. It was like walking through the labyrinthine minds of multiple people - graffiti astonishes me and always leaves me with a niggling discomfort. I must remember to tell you about the lock on the heavy iron wall, that was a door to the villa. Locks are fascinating and I collected them for some time. This one was a steel box, three knobs and a flat steel rod like a half meter scale in a metallic geometry box. All ready for a pre-party, I stood sweating, trying to let myself out - common sense told me that the three knobs were the key; just where to press them and in what order escaped me for eight minutes. Finally, One, two, three and voila! it slid aside without even a telling swish. I came to know later in Ahmedabad during the course of a discussion with travellers mindful of their travel, time and money - that these locks were called puzzle locks.
A conference on creative economy (to me) was a glaring spotlight on every government’s indifference to the soft brand identity that creative arts bring to a destination. A case in point is the Kochi Biennale. A towering monument may speak a thousand words frozen through time, but the arts are real time, for everyone and nudge all your senses. It will feed multiple economies, quietly and for a longtime even after it is termed ‘ancient’. Enough said, maybe there is hope. Let me quickly move to that one aspect of the conference that made the rain, the commute and spend worth its weight in tears! A Kutiyattam performance by maestro Sooraj Nambiar.
I think I have seen a Kutiyattam performance before, but not at such proximity or with a heightened sensitivity that enveloped me like an outer skin in tatters. These days I feel everything first.
Sooraj spoke at the conference, haltingly and not really addressing an audience, almost as if he was speaking to himself and his art. And at the end of the day, he performed. People not tuned into his art or any art, left. Curious and courteous people stayed to the end, after the talking part of the conference was over. The room dimmed, a tall and stout old bronze lamp was lit, and a young lady looking like she stepped out of a Ravi Varma painting from a calendar reprint, outlined the theme and introduced the performers.
The room took on the sombre, softly lit ambience of a room in an ancient Tharavad, walls touched by innumerable hands that may have touched a lamp’s oily wick and soot. Two drummers took the back end of the stage on a traditional drum called Mizhavu specific to this art. Mizhavu resembles a Chinese or Grecian urn made of copper or clay with a hide stretched over its narrow mouth. The drums began the story, soft steady beats, slow at first, building to a medium rhythm and then faster and insistent to welcome the solo performer on stage. Sooraj didn’t look like the speaker of the morning. As the performer now, his eyes accentuated boldly with dark kohl, and lips, a red exaggeration that could curve up or down willed by emotion. Bare chested with a Mundu (cotton yardage of 3-4 yards men tie around their waist) covering him from hip to calf, the edges gathered together in a flourish of frills. Another white cloth fell around his neck, gathered together and ending in a ruffle, he used this as a prop to hide his face or swing it around to make a point.
And then as the drums rolled, he was the story, the drums only kept pace with his telling. On his haunches atop a stool so that he looked like he had four wooden hooves, Sooraj was his craft for about 45 mins. His face, eyes and lips, every muscle spoke emotions intensely like spoken words, while his upper body - torso and arms walked, stretched his bow, hunted, swayed, swung, slithered, tiptoed, hovered and glided. As the man in the forest, he was desolate, happy, confused, awed, furious and curious. He was also a snake, a deer, a raptor, a peacock. And then he was rain, its smell and patter and the susurrus of the forest.
The drums slowed down, and all characters - birds, animals, man, hunter and hunted, stilled and merged back as the performer. The spell bound audience - the curious and the courteous hadn’t fully assimilated the magic that unfolded in this dark corner of a brightly lit conference room they walked into in the morning. I think they will carry this for a long time as an emotional memory.
This is Kutiyattam, a Sanskrit theatre almost 2,000 years old officially recognised by UNESCO as a masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity in 2001. The artform represents a synthesis of Sanskrit classicism and reflects the local theatrical traditions of Kerala. As a language of theatre and one of the oldest performing art traditions, the emphasis is on style and codified theatrical language, universally understood through senses despite the absence of dialogue or lyrics.
Spinning stories, so you can travel.
Shoba Rudra
