Festival spice
Trip Start
Mar 17, 2009
1
5
Trip End
Sep 01, 2009
Kumily, Kerala, India
Friday, May 1, 2009
Days filled with leisurely strolls and fine snacking opportunities, hiring bikes for a day in the Periyar National Park, trying to find some cooler clothes (i'm determined that it's possible not to look like a hippy, or a wannabe-indian ... haven't found anything yet though), and days simply lazing around the guest house gardens watching birds, deer, water buffalo, mongeese ...
the national park itself offers different packages / tours. We opted for a 3 hour hike early in the morning, with a later-in-the-day boat trip. The hike was great, with giant squirrel, gaur, tiger (poo), elephant (skeleton - from a recent fight) and all the trees and flowers. When we returned to the base we all checked for leeches (a problem after rain). I had one inside my trainer, but outside my sock. Not sure how it got there, but it was already quite fat.
Kumily is one of the most aromatic of towns. The Kulimy Cardomen Marketing Board has impressive headquarters there, with rows of women sitting winnowing (?) the pods all day, wafts of cardomen perfume filling the road ... until you pass towards the rubbish and drains.
We were fortunate enough to be in town for the festival(s) (April and May are festival season all over Kerala). This began with a most surreal and unexpected 2 night parade by the Lourdes Catholic Church, culminating in some sort of ceremony (mass ?) at the rather strange large white statue of oversize mary with undersized dying jesus on her lap.
A few days later there was another nightly parade, this time by the Syrian Orthodox Church. St Thomas' festival i believe. Lots of all night sound systems, parading priest with plenty of incense-swinging and bunting along the streets. Apparently Kerala is a Syrian Orthodox Church strong-hold, having resisted Catholic and other sorts of Christian persuasions ...
The really big festival was the Hindu festival this last weekend. It rates as one of the most impressive, wonderful, strange and stimulating festivals i've ever been to. Our guest-house family were heavily involved ; Sateesh organising the all-night cooking session before day 1, when everyone was fed. And i do mean everyone, thousands all sitting together being fed the most delicious south indian thali. Day 2 was a quieter affair, stalls, a programme of singing and music (we missed the appearance by 3rd place finalist from "Star Singer' an indian equivalent to 'Pop idol'). Day 3 was the real deal ... Sateesh was very excited about the evenings programme, "I can't describe it, very full power". And it was.
We walked to town in time for some roadside kerala parotha, omelette and samba before the parade began. We'd already seen the women doing their special chanting and dancing around a kolom (geometric sand drawing / meditation / offering) that was covered in pots of topiary-ed seedlings. These women joined the drum and horn group as they paraded towards the town centre.
Kumily (in Kerala) is on the border with Tamil Nadu so the main festival parade begins over the border and then heads through town into the national park to the main hindu temple. At the head of the parade was a motor-rikshaw with neon strip lights attached to the sides to illuminate the glass cabinet on its roof (containing 3 topiary-ed pots of seedlings - these ones definately in the shape of shiva's lingum ... loving the lingum seems to be obligatory in india). Behind the rikshaw came the dancing girls (who were actually men), then Kathakarli performers, lookie-likie impersonators of Shiva and some of his fellow gods (my very patchy knowledge of indian deities has not really been fleshed out much) then the trance men with knives. Well skewers actually, mostly through their cheeks (with what looked like a lime on either end as a stopper) but some through their arms and torso too. They had a merry band of supporters / encouragers ... St John's Ambulance might have been more appropriate, but their presence was not in evidence anywhere at the festival. Behind these men came the bench twirlers ... large men in lunghi's each with a bench resting on their shoulders. On each bench was something like a 20 foot tinsel xmas tree, covered in tinsel rosettes and trumpets. These men were not simply carrying the benches, oh no, they were spinning (sufi style) whilst moving with the parade for the duration ... about 4 or 5 kms. Behind the spinning benches came the women, about 40 of them, all with one of the seedling pots on their heads. And finally, behind the women ... came the elephant, complete with little grey-bearded man holding picture of .... another indian deity ...
The whole thing was unlike anything i've ever experienced before. We wondered at what point in the year would you decide that this year you are going to spin with a large bench / tinsel-tree for the parade ? or how sticking a skewer through your face connects with religious devotion ? It's all very exotic and strange to me, seeing people in such a state of ecstasy.
We decided to move on a couple of days later (having been in lovely Kumily, and the lovely Meadow View Inn Guest house for almost 2 wks), but not before we secured a rose and jasmine plant for the family as a gift. From everyones response in town it seems it was a good choice of present and even better we got a standard price for it). We were pretty bowled over by the families response ... an elephant hair each for cath and me. A wild elephant hair (collected by Sateesh who also works in the Periyar National Park). These are rare and thought to bring the wearer luck if they are next to their skin ... we're searching for jeweller to do something with our special hairs ...
