Small occurences

Since Ariel left I have had to work much harder to occupy my time, as I find the members of the household actually holed up inside all day and my primary company is of the household staff who are all wonderful but speak no english. The good news is my desperation has led to some wonderful experiences. So in no particular order I give you a smattering of observations in episode, list and photograph format ending with a short story of which I am for some reason particularly fond. And on a sidenote, I herewith provide my backing to Ariel's last post on Kutiyattam- I have nothing to contradict (though still much to learn).

1. Preparing for a Mohiniyattam performance at the temple to celebrate a makeup artist's 50 yeas contribution to the field, my young classmates fret over their hair and costumes. One by one they are transformed from giggly adolescents to shining young conveyors of the gods' stories. I was aching to take pictures of their preparations but decided better to try and be helpful than to make them more nervous (they didn't want their picture taken until they felt presentable). Backstage before the show they go to Teacher one by one to be blessed by her and give her an offering of leaves, fruit, and rupees. These 2 girls fastening their ankle bells are 2 of the eldest and self-proclaimed "BEST friends."

And this one of a young kathakali performer after finishing his makeup backstage.

2. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I am in India. I don't know how I could forget it, but the realization sometimes slips out of its sunken spot. So I stop to note the things around me: purple banana flowers. hard-packed dirt paths. falling-apart asphalt roads , bindis bindis bindis, plastic furniture, communist flags, houses painted absurdly bright colors, green mangoes ripening on the trees, yellow cashew fruit falling with the cashew nut attached as if dripping out the bottom, people bobbling their heads in affirmation and pop songs blasting out of the auto shop across the way, girls in otherwise austere school uniforms wear neon pink bows in their hair, goats and cows wander and rummage along the roadside outside of town, and everywhere I go I am asked "which country? which country?"

3. Modes of transport gets its own section: musical trucks decorated personally by their drivers with bright paints, bells, tassles and figures of the gods. cars that play tunes for the benefit of passers-by whenever they are put into reverse. elephants carrying huge palm fronds in their tusks and a single rider on their backs leaving heaping piles of what they don't use for energy in the road. motorcycles carrying the entire family of four with the women sitting side-saddle. in the same theme, autorickshaws packed with what appears to be the entire second grade class of a school, sitting on the driver's lap and spilling out the sides. bicycles with a wagon attached to the front to wheel around one's goods. and of course the simplest transport of one's own barefeet.

4. Rice is not just rice: As I learned the other day in a primarily gesticular conversation with Sugiata, the house's primary helper. While we have one word for rice (be it in the field, raw, cooked, whatever) malayalam has a different word for each of it's many possible states. Pointing to the raw grains scattered about the kitchen surfaces, she says "ari." I repeat, ok. Then "cooked," (she knows this word) I have understood is "choru." But if it's cooked with water still in it, not drained (much pointing to water, "velum," a strainer, a pot, the rice again) it is called somethign else, and when growing (she points to the field, I mime plants growing, she pulls down a back of unshucked grain from the top shelf) the word is soemthing like "neyli." This is how most of our conversations go. But with them my food vocabulary is the fastest growing bit in my small malayalam repertoire and I am learning to cook some of the local dishes, which so far all contain rice in some form.

5. Some extra pictures:

Me in front of the Hotel where Ariel and I were staying. Dad asked to see a picture of me in a sari so here it is. We went to see a Kathakali show this night. Mostly though I wear a "punjabi dress" which is loose pants and a long tunic shirt with a scarf (worn in any number of modest , figure hiding ways)

To give you an idea of the school, this is one of the 2 main practice/performance spaces. I have Kuttiyatam class here and often practice on my own here in the open air under the palm-leaf roof. In this picture we are watching an old story teller recite the first of 41 days of this story of which he is the sole remaining keeper. Venuji is recording all 41 days to preserve the story. Unfortunately it is all in Malayalam and the gestures are very minimalistic so while he is a fascinating presence I can't really follow any of the action.

6. Athapilly Waterfalls I went for the day to get away and relished every moment. my camera died so I have no pictures of the falls themselves, but I can assure they were majestic from all angles (because I saw them all). The slightly overbearing forest guide pointed out to me the cave to the right of the falls where a swami lived for 2 years until followers started to come to the cave by the hundreds and he decided to leave. I was also shown at the top of the falls how the rock arcs across the falls looking uncannily like an elephant's trunk (the ear and eye also clearly apparent) and told that because of this particular shaping of the rock over so many years people often come here to worship the elephant god, Ganapathi. I was happiest though, away from the , walking up the river alone. There I saw 2 men living quietly by the side of the river as if their sole purpose was to watch their solar panel gather light and occasionally cross the river for visits by way of their bamboo raft. I was also happy to meet a peaceful monkey family who accepted my company as I took some pictures and watched their movements through their home of clustered bamboo trees leaning out over the water. I watched the baby climb carefully down a vine to drink from the river without getting himself wet. And I got very close to one of the adults who patiently let me photograph her. I was very impressed until I stopped to look in my bag and apparently this is when an adult decided I had stayed long enough and with a gentle growl came much closer than my comfort allowed and quickly escorted me to the edge of the territory where I was allowed to continue on again at my own not-being-chased-by-monkey pace.

7. Shaktan Palace and Gardens Another day trip to the only appealing tourist spot I could find in the nearby town of Thrissur. But it turned out to be really quite worth it. I saw ancient stone Buddhas, and realized I had never really known the extent of greek and chinese influence in India from centuries ago. I wandered through the strange romantic gardens. And then I went into town and lazed in a small shop where the old no-english shopkeeper and I squatted side by side playing with the handmade wooden toys as he showed me silently, but for laughter, how they worked. It was delightful.

8. Ammame (grandmother) She sits at the table with her task: a large plate of tiny purple onions to peel. She searches for her waist without looking, to tuck in the end of her white cotton sari. She shakes. She peels the onions. Sugiata puts a bowl of warm milk beside her on the table and goes to get some greens from somewhere in the yard. Old Amma puts some peeled onions in the milk. I am puzzled. When I spread the table cloth she mumbled to me in malayalam and indicated I should first shake it out. The indication was perhaps involuntary but that's the part I understood. Now she thinks I understand malayalam. So she points to her bowl of milk with the onions and tells me what to do with it, but of course I have no idea. Take it away? Get another bowl? Is it to cook? What does one do with peeled onions in warm milk? Finally she gets up herself and starts to leave the outdoor dining platform carrying the onion milk in her shaky hands on her unsure footing. What do I do? Should I stop her? Will she fall? Sugiata comes to the rescue. With a little scolding, she gently escorts Ammame back to her chair and spoons the onions out of the milk. Ammame, safely seated proceeds now to drink the onionless milk with a spoon as she was originally intended to do. All the while gently muttering things I don't understand. Sugiata smiles at me. We made it.