is only so much we can do for you – now you just have to turn to God. My grandparents, who live in a village not far from here, came and told the goddess Bhagavati about me. She told them that within a month I would be completely well. Her power strengthened the hands of the doctor who took care of me, and I made an immediate, miraculous recovery. As no one – least of all the doctors – could explain it, we all believe that it was the goddess who cured me. Since then my family have never missed a single theyyam at this shrine. Each year we come all the way from Chennai to seek blessings and give thanks.’
We were still talking when the drumming began. Within a few minutes it was loud enough to hurt the ears, thumping into the body with an almost physical impact. I withdrew some distance from the shrine and the make-up hut, and took my seat in the front row of the crowd, as the thottam song of invocation was sung.
This time, Chamundi was the first deity out, a much more sinister theyyam than any I had witnessed the previous year. Red-faced, black-eyed and white-armed, with rouged lips, large red metal breasts and a halo of palm spines that looked like the blade of a giant circular saw, the deity emerged into the clearing rattling her bracelets and hissing like a snake. She circled the shrine, her face distorted and twitching from side to side, like a huge lizard. Her mouth opened and closed silently, her ruff of palm spikes swivelled and every so often she let out a loud cockatoo-like shriek. There was something agitated, disturbed and unpredictable about this eerie figure strutting malevolently around the edge of the crowd, glaring every so often at some individual who met her gaze; yet there was also something unmistakably regal about her, demanding attention and deference. Two priests, stripped to the waist, approached her, heads bowed, with a bowl of toddy, which she drank in a single gulp.
As she was drinking, the drums reached a new climax and suddenly a second deity appeared, leaping into the clearing with a crown of seven red cobra heads, to which were attached two huge round earrings. A silver-appliqué chakra disc was stuck in the middle of his forehead, and round his waist was a wide grass farthingale, as if an Elizabethan couturier had somehow been marooned on a forgotten jungle island and been forced to reproduce the fashions of the Virgin Queen’s court from local materials. His wrists were encircled with bracelets of palm spines and exora flowers. It was only after a minute that I realised it was Hari Das. He was unrecognisable. His eyes were wide, charged and staring, and his whole personality seemed to have been transformed. The calm, slightly earnest and thoughtful man I knew from my previous meetings was now changed into a frenzied divine athlete. He made a series of spectacular leaps in the air as he circled the kavu , twirling and dancing, spraying the crowd with showers of rice offerings .
After several rounds in this manner, the tempo of the drums slowly lowered. As Chamundi took her seat on a throne at one side of the main entrance to the shrine, still twitching uneasily, the Vishnumurti theyyam approached the ranks of devotees, in a choreographed walk, part strut, part dance. All of the devotees and pilgrims had now respectfully risen from their seats or from the ground, and stood with heads bowed before the deity.
In one hand the Vishnumurti held a bow and a quiver of arrows; in the other a sword. These he used to bless the devotees, who bowed their heads as he approached. With the blade of the sword he touched the outstretched hands of some of the crowd. ‘All will be well!’ he intoned in a deep voice in Malayalam. ‘All the darkness will go! The gods will look after you. They will protect you and be your friend! Do not worry! God is everywhere!’ Between these encouraging phrases in the local dialect he muttered a series of Sanskrit mantras and incantations. The personality of the
We were still talking when the drumming began. Within a few minutes it was loud enough to hurt the ears, thumping into the body with an almost physical impact. I withdrew some distance from the shrine and the make-up hut, and took my seat in the front row of the crowd, as the thottam song of invocation was sung.
This time, Chamundi was the first deity out, a much more sinister theyyam than any I had witnessed the previous year. Red-faced, black-eyed and white-armed, with rouged lips, large red metal breasts and a halo of palm spines that looked like the blade of a giant circular saw, the deity emerged into the clearing rattling her bracelets and hissing like a snake. She circled the shrine, her face distorted and twitching from side to side, like a huge lizard. Her mouth opened and closed silently, her ruff of palm spikes swivelled and every so often she let out a loud cockatoo-like shriek. There was something agitated, disturbed and unpredictable about this eerie figure strutting malevolently around the edge of the crowd, glaring every so often at some individual who met her gaze; yet there was also something unmistakably regal about her, demanding attention and deference. Two priests, stripped to the waist, approached her, heads bowed, with a bowl of toddy, which she drank in a single gulp.
As she was drinking, the drums reached a new climax and suddenly a second deity appeared, leaping into the clearing with a crown of seven red cobra heads, to which were attached two huge round earrings. A silver-appliqué chakra disc was stuck in the middle of his forehead, and round his waist was a wide grass farthingale, as if an Elizabethan couturier had somehow been marooned on a forgotten jungle island and been forced to reproduce the fashions of the Virgin Queen’s court from local materials. His wrists were encircled with bracelets of palm spines and exora flowers. It was only after a minute that I realised it was Hari Das. He was unrecognisable. His eyes were wide, charged and staring, and his whole personality seemed to have been transformed. The calm, slightly earnest and thoughtful man I knew from my previous meetings was now changed into a frenzied divine athlete. He made a series of spectacular leaps in the air as he circled the kavu , twirling and dancing, spraying the crowd with showers of rice offerings .
After several rounds in this manner, the tempo of the drums slowly lowered. As Chamundi took her seat on a throne at one side of the main entrance to the shrine, still twitching uneasily, the Vishnumurti theyyam approached the ranks of devotees, in a choreographed walk, part strut, part dance. All of the devotees and pilgrims had now respectfully risen from their seats or from the ground, and stood with heads bowed before the deity.
In one hand the Vishnumurti held a bow and a quiver of arrows; in the other a sword. These he used to bless the devotees, who bowed their heads as he approached. With the blade of the sword he touched the outstretched hands of some of the crowd. ‘All will be well!’ he intoned in a deep voice in Malayalam. ‘All the darkness will go! The gods will look after you. They will protect you and be your friend! Do not worry! God is everywhere!’ Between these encouraging phrases in the local dialect he muttered a series of Sanskrit mantras and incantations. The personality of the
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