"Thamaichu Peyy" (BH:D220)

March 9, 2012

Following closely on the heels of the record breaking Attukal Pongala, the local Althara goddess temple had its pongala today. I am typing this out at night as a poor elephant is being dragged around in the colony for the mindless act of showing the "goddess" how much grain each house has harvested this year!!! The noise is unbearable and the whole area is littered with paper cups the volunteers have been using. But no such refreshment breaks for the poor beast that needs hundreds of liters of water especially when it is walking next to burning torches on a tarred road for six hours straight! But hey! it is the blessings that count! As one bald, old uncle put it after a satisfied sigh when the elephant went past his house: "That was grand!"

Getting back to the pongala this morning. It needed only a small section of the road to be blocked. But that was enough to cause panic and confusion for the school kids and their grand parents (it is the new tradition: grand parents are the ones to drop and pick up kids from school bus stop) about where the buses would now stop. Accentuated worry since it is also exam season.

As I headed towards the temple during my walk, several women, mostly those who work as maids in the wealthier houses of this part of the city, were hurrying with their bags towards the 'pongala' venue. A 60-something among them said to another in a tone of jovial half-worry: "Thamaichu peyy!" 

The official start was to be 7:30. It was already 7:28 in my watch and we were more than two minutes away from the temple, not to mention the time it would take for these women to set up their hearths. Hence the "thamaichu peyy". That phrase, had it been the name of some imaginary kingdom from Tolkien or part of a mantra in the Upanishads rediscovered by scholars like Dr. Azhikode, would have been in the vocabulary and memory of hundreds of thousands. This uniquely Thiruvananthapuram phrase doesn't have any such claim to fame. It remains an oft repeated mantra limited to around half a million women who live in the southern most district of Kerala. 

Even Malayalees from other parts of Kerala, who know that "thamasichu poyi" with the appropriate tone amounts to the apology "sorry, I am late", will not immediately recognize "thamaichu peyy", verily the 'tatwamasi' of the hundreds of thousands of feminine feet that race towards richer homes in the city every morning to clean, to wash, to cook for others who can afford to believe that there are better things to do in life.

At the book stall run by government's Bookmark Society as part of the Disaster Management exhibition in Kanakakunnu Palace though I found Prof. Sreedhara Menon's two volume "History of India" yesterday evening, I wasn't carrying enough cash to buy it. When I reported this temperory financial set back at home during dinner, Amma looks at me as if I am Greece. "Ask if you need cash," she says unlike Angela Merkel. Western stand up comedians often talk about living with their parents even in their twenties. Sissies! I am 34. That is a full two years more than even Ray Romano's parental home staying record!

I went back for the book today. Nandu, my neighborhood pal, who wasn't even born when had I left for doing BTech in 1996, joined me. He is my Nethra substitute here. Though he is full five years older than her, she is definitely taller and both are equally skinny. A particulaly helpful thick mustachioed fire force officer spent a lot of time demonstrating some knots to us. Then he lectured unsuspecting Nandu about the need to eat well and gain weight! When we got to the area where the book stall stood last night, it has tranformed into a lunch buffet. A little further down, in a new tent, Bookmark workers were cursing and rearranging the books. We waited for nearly half an hour for Sridhara Menon's works to emerge from the plastic sacks. 

Back home before lunch, my astrologer uncle visits. After the usual discussion about meaningless words like souls, positive energy, peace of mind etc we get to setting up his new laptop. I mention the news of old Hindi actor Joy Mukherjee death. Suddenly he says, "There is this song I remember from 1967. I saw this movie twice in Bhilai. It was called Dr. Vidya. It was such a great song. "Kangna Khanke". I have searched for it everywhere for years."

As he is talking, I find the song on youtube and play it. The man gives me a stiffling hug. He is almost crying with joy. I guess it happens when someone waits to hear a song for 45 years. 

"Now that I have seen this, I think I am going to die soon" he says.

"Watching it again after all these years must have surely extended your life" I suggest.

He returned home with both the mp3 and mp4 versions on his laptop of both this song and "mere mehboob mein kya" from the movie "Mere Mehboob" also from the 60s. The songs brought back to him the days he worked in the foundry at the steel plant. 

Mostly because I wanted to avoid the charade of making an offering to the goddess on the elephant, I went in the evening for the Cantata Festival sponsored by the State Bank of Travancore at Vylopilli Samskriti Bhavan. An all girl Swedish group called "The Rising" was performing along with two local troupes, Asima and 'Ensemble 7'.

When I got to the venue, "The Rising", clad in bright sarees were having a photo session. They were helping each other keep the sarees from wardrobe malfunctioning. Couple of the ladies looked absolutely comfortable in that dress. From the brochure, I learnt that one of them had been in India for quite a while. For the other ladies it was their first two week visit.

The evening began with "Asima" who the brochure said was an all-male troupe but featured an obviously female drummer. Directed by Devissaro, an Australian living in Kerala since 1980, the troupe wore white "mundu" with white kurtas/jubas that gave them a sort of 'Pentecostal' preacher look. They started with a Ganesh prayer that quickly turned out to be a musical butchering of Sanskrit. And just when I was thinking this was just starting trouble for a young group, they followed with their "version" of Kumar Gandharva's "Ud Jayega" by the great saint Kabirdas. Even an unmusical individual like me knows that a magnificent combination like Kumar Gandharva and Kabir should be left alone without being 'versionized'! Next came a version of the famous Malayalam lullaby "Omana thinkal". It worked in the sense I yawned at the end of what seemed like an eternity of "rari-ro-rari-ro" During all this the drummer/percussionist was pretty much idle. But the final number by the group, gave much opportunity to her and she went all out. So did the sound system guys drowning most of the vocals. Despite the so-so performance music-wise, a couple of singers seemed to really enjoy themselves as evidenced by their gestures and expressions. 

"The Rising" were sitting among the audience and rose up singing to go to the stage. Their director Cecilia Orhwall has worked in India for a couple of years in Bangalore and Coimbatore. They started with a song about the longing for spring in Sweden after the long, dark winter. Soulful use of the flute. Next was another nostalgic number, this time about the beloved from the East. After these two Swedish songs, they performed an American, in fact African-American, gospel song. Never before had I seen an all white choir successfully capture most of the infectious energy that exudes from an African American gospel choir. "Take the shackles off my feet so that I can dance!" thus was a hit! The response they received elevated their mood as they launched into more energetic performances. 

For piano and percussion, help was taken from Charu and Vineet who belonged to Ensemble 7. At one point when the all female choir with the female percussionist Charu performed a song called Happyland, I couldn't help remembering the book "Adam's Curse" about the vanishing Y chromosome of our species.Ms. Orhwall talked about the two weeks these girls had spent in India. They meet in Stockholm only once a week to practice, but it is obviously time well spent. While they sang a Swedish song about the longing for a place to call home, my mind wandered into the possible common ancestor of Sanskrit and Sweden. It appears that coming to hot India thousands of years ago, the language evolved with the open mouth, wagging tongue and enough sounds to make the hot air escape while its going up north, towards cold Sweden, long sounds were dropped and guttural expressions gained. 

"Seasons of love" from Rent, the crowd pleaser, was performed next. For their final song, the group sought help from Latha Krishna,also from Ensemble 7. I had noticed Ms. Krishna posing profusely for a photographer before the concert. Clearly she is well set down the celebrity path. 

"Latha, do you think this song needs any introduction?" Ms. Orhwall jokes.

"Cecilia, thank you for this opportunity. I am very honored to sing this song with you!" came the reply!

As Srinivasan wrote in "Chintavishtayaya Shyamala": "Chodyam entho, utharam verentho!" (Some question, totally unrelated answer). So again, clearly Ms. Krishna is set down the celebrity path!

Nevertheless, she had a wonderfully energetic voice and "The Rising" impressed the audience with a superb rendition of the popular Malayalam folksong, "Pallivaalu Bhadra Vatakam...". The ladies even put in a few rudimentary dance moves.

The final group for the evening was "Ensemble 7". Looked like Latha Krishna was an exception when it comes to energy and charm on stage. Rest of the group looked dead serious. Are the youngsters of this society in some sort of depression? How much does it take to smile and enjoy the music you are performing? I wonder if the delusion that serious, melancholy is the underpinning of great art has got traction among them! There were a lot of young men, fans of the group I suppose, with "intellectual/artist" long hair and beard standing in the audience. I dunno if it is a coterie effect from such fans that gives the young group confidence to utterly destroy an evergreen, beautiful Malayalam melody like "Alliyambal kadavil..." 

My youngest uncle had also come for the show. As the final song of the evening was announced, we turned to each other and could sum up Ensemble 7's performance in one word: "Mlanatha" which roughly means gloom. 

By the time all the groups came together on stage to sing the Latin-Sanskrit combo song for world peace, we were already in the parking lot with the decision to attend the Chakyarkoothu tomorrow to cheer us up.

It's past 11pm, this note gets published later than usual. "Thamaichu peyy!"