Each morning while I was on Fulbright, I arrived at Kerala Kalamandalam around 5AM, when daylight was just dawning and coconut palms were swaying in the half-light. I would enter the Koothambalam, a huge performance space, and take my place among the vast number of girls dressed in green and orange saris for exercises. From my vantage, at the back of the Koothambalam, the students looked like a field of orange and green tropical flowers opening in to the morning light. During the first few months, my dance uniform (a half-length sari)
was never tied correctly. Usually my friends would take pity on me and would patiently refold my pleats and re-pin the pallu (the end that goes over one's left shoulder).
With my sari tied properly, I would then join the students in the Koothamabalam and begin the arduous morning exercise routine- a combination of calisthenics, yoga contortions, and subtle isolations. We performed deep lunges and knee bends, hand mudras, arm and shoulder movements, and balances, alternating between vigorous and aerobic repetitive movement done in unison with the whole group and hand exercises done individually. After we finished the exercises, we would perform the Namaskaram, a sequence of movements to pay respect to the earth.
During my first week at Kalamandalam, after the morning exercises, some girls invited me back to their room for some breakfast. We sat in a dark, slightly musty room on a communal wooden bed that also served as a table. We drank milky-sweet chai tea and ate idilis (a food made from fermented rice). The girls put red sindur in my hair, a declaration of my married status, put a bindi on my forehead, and comforted me about my childlessness.
One young woman asked me, “What is your favorite movie?” I thought for a bit and responded
that I did not really have a favorite movie, though I do have a distinct fondness for the Merchant-Ivory production "A Room with a View." The students had never heard of the film.
I returned the question to the students, “What is your favorite film?”
Nearly in unison, they all responded, “Titanic!”
James Cameron’s Oscar winning film was produced in 1997, so in 2003 the film’s popularity was a bit surprising.
“Please sing an American song for us!,” the girls asked.
I conceded and sang a verse from “You are My Sunshine.”
The girls chatted a bit in Malayalam, “Was it a folk song?”
I said that it was.
“We didn’t like it very much,” said one, “sing another song.”
My repertoire of songs is limited, and I was beginning to feel agitated. The climate was very hot and I was dripping with sweat leftover from dance class. I missed my husband, who had not yet arrived in Kerala and what I really wanted was a shower and a nap.
“Sing The Titanic Song!” cried one of the girls.
“The Titanic Song?” I asked incredulously.
“Celine Dion!” they replied, demonstrating more knowledge than I have about “American” pop-culture. I had no idea what "The Titanic Song" even sounded like. I had seen Titanic several years back in a movie theater in Mendocino, California with my family. It was an epic film, pure Hollywood eye-candy. But the soundtrack? The title song? I didn’t have a clue…. I was going to get one.
Five Keralite girls all burst into song around me, giggling and slightly swaying with Bollywood-style hip movements. The melody of the song had been influenced by their Carnatic and Sopana vocal music training, and the English was a bit garbled, but there was no doubt about it, in rural Kerala Titanic had made a titanic impact. I found myself in doubt, I came to rural India to experience some kind of Indian-ness - and I get… Titanic?
Some of my best friends and informants in Kerala are a pair of brothers named Shaheem and Shafiq. The brothers live walking distance from the Kalamandalam School where their family owns an Ayurvedic pharmacy. Their father is reputed to be the first Muslim Ayurvedic doctor in Kerala. Both brothers are unmarried because neither has been able to obtain enough money to build a new “Middle Eastern-style” house near the main road; a crucial bargaining chip on the Kerala marriage market.
Shaheem, the younger brother, is, as he has told me on numerous occasions, "crazy for everything Western." He dresses in "executive-style" (heavy wool trousers, long sleeve button-up polyester shirts and leather dress shoes) despite the hot humid weather of Kerala. His brother Shafiq, has little interest in the West, is a devout Muslim and always dresses in Kerala-style traditional dhotis. Shafiq practices medicine under their father but because of excessive fees, has not been able to pursue official certification as an Ayurvedic doctor. The polar attitudes of these two brothers represent two ways of dealing with the crises of globalization and westernization: cautious resistance and bold embrace.
During my 2003-2004 research, Shaheem was studying English with my husband Grady, and he often acted as a translator for us. I posed the question to Shaheem and Shafiq:
“What is your favorite movie?”
They responded without hestitation, “Titanic, of course!”
As if there were any other answer!
I queried Shaheem, “What about Malayalam films?”
The Malayalam film industry churns out hundreds of films each year.
“We love Malayalam films,” the brothers told me. “But really, our favorite film, above all else, is Titanic.” This was not the answer I expected from two young men who live in rural Kerala. Maybe it was a passing phase?
I returned to Kerala in the summer of 2005 to formally study in a Malayalam language intensive and continue my training in Mohiniyattam. I was based in the capital of Kerala- the booming metropolis of Tiruvananathapuram. Titanic was still floating. My host “uncle,” a senior manager at the Kerala State Bank told me that it was his favorite movie, as did my Malayalam language teachers, my dance teachers and all my friends. In fact, everyone who I asked seemed to still love Titanic, perhaps even more than when I had last conducted fieldwork in Kerala.
Returning to Cheruthuruthy (a ruraltown near the Kalamandalam school), I met with Shaheem whose love of Titanic remained unfaltering.
“Actually” he told me, “ I have seen Titanic over thirty-five times! I just love Titanic. All people here love Titanic; grandmothers, young women, boys, girls, and men.”
Shaheem now runs an English Academy in Cheruthuruthy. I was lucky enough to be a guest teacher in the Academy for a few days last summer. I initiated a conversation about films. The conversation topic was deliberate, (I am an anthropologist, after all), and I wanted more evidence that Titanic was as important as I suspected.
During the course of two days I spoke with over one-hundred students from the ages of fifteen to fifty; men and women, boys and girls, Muslims, Hindus and Christians. Almost every student with whom I spoke identified Titanic as his or her favorite movie. Later, watching television with Shaheem, he turned the channel to a public access station so we could see his advertisement for “Speak Up! Speak Out! Academy of English.” Much to my glee, advertisement after advertisement had “The Titanic Song” playing in the background.
So why does the Titanic have such a lasting and intense resonance with Keralites? Of course, the movie must have a variety of meanings for each viewer, yet the seemingly uniform love of the movie, (as opposed to any other American, Mollywood, Tallywood, or Bollywood film), demands some sort of explanation. Certainly the entirety of the film is epic, in the tradition of Bollywood films, yet I do not believe that this, alone, accounts for the popularity of Titanic in Kerala.
It is tempting to interpret the widespread love of Titanic as cultural imperialism in its most blatant form. Through this lens, the culture industry of the West is engaged in ideological imperialism resulting in worldwide cultural homogenization. Yet, it must be taken into consideration that people in Kerala really enjoy Titanic. Keralites with whom I spoke about the movie never saw it as a negative import of Westernization. This imperialist designation is generally reserved for Kerala's large Coca Cola plant that appropriates ground water resources and pollutes the land, affecting tribals, dalits, and small farmers nearby the factory in the Palakhad region.
So why is Titanic so popular in Kerala? And has its popularity waned since I was there in 2005? My husband and I are headed back to Kerala this August (2007) for another year to find out and I suspect that Titanic hasn't sunk in Kerala just yet.
Friday, August 3, 2007
Thursday, August 2, 2007
POORAM- 2003/2004
It's Pooram season! Pooram means "festival" in central Kerala, and festival here means elephants. Lots of elephants wearing gold head ornaments, and estatic dancers holding fans and umbrellas riding on top of the elephants as they are paraded around, in, and through, throngs of people. We are proud sponsors of our local Pooram festival. There are several Pooram festivals throughout central Kerala, each features a different styles of dancers, but elephants are present at all Pooram festivities. The Cheruthuruthy Pooram includes five groups of dancers, musicians, and elephants, each originating in different villages.Early in the morning of the Pooram festival day, our villages' hired elephants parade past our house, accompanied by a cacophony of pounding chenda drums. The elephants for Pooram must have both tusks and must have the temperment to cooperate with humans. Keralites say that the pounding chenda drums and the whining brass horns sooth the elephants who "dance" to the music.
Hailed by local firends, we join the crush of the parade, avoiding the elephants' plodding feet. We march slowly to the Bhagavaty Goddess temple, surrounded by dancers, umbrella holders and exuberant young men. At the temple the elephant brigades
from several villages gather and thousands of people crowd around the temple. In all, 27 elephants plod through the central plaza, and line-up in front of the temple.Drums and horns blare while dancers frenetically spin and stamp in the dust. Women in white and gold saris gather together in groups under the shade trees while boys and young men swagger through the central plaza laughing and boasting with their friends.
This Porram festival concludes in the running of the bulls. Not real bulls, but papermache effigies, which are run, violently, through the crowded temple grounds. This is q uite a scene and not reccomended for anyone weak of heart or lungs.
From 2003-2004 Grady Gauthier and Justine Lemos attented several Pooram festivals in Thrissur District, Kerala, including their own villages' Pooram near Cheruthuruthy.
THE AMBASSADOR
Last weekend my friends Rajesh, Bindu, and Prima met me at my house in India's most trusted travel vehicle, the Ambassador. According to The Ambassador website, The Ambassador was the first car manufactured in India, and "has been ruling the Indian roads ever since its inception in 1948." In style, the Ambassador hasn't changed much since 1948.
Our driver, Raju, was extremely to the road, except when he was answering his mobile, rolling paan (a beetle nut chew), or talking over his shoulder to the people in the backseat. Much to my dismay, throughout the first half of the trip, the roads were quite good. The problem with good roads in Kerala is that when pavement is smooth there is nothing to slow the driver. Better road quality lends itself to Malayalee maneuvers such as, the pass on blind curve with horn-blaring, the run small farm animals off the road with horn blasts, and surprise the villagers with horn toots. In Kerala, the horn is a safety device par excellance, a communication beacon, and sometimes a musical instrument. Drivers use their horns with a frequency unknown in the western world.
We traveled to the small village of Attingal just north of Trivandrum where my friend, Dr. Bindu, lives in a refurbished 200 year-old home. The home has a red tile roof, wooden construction, carved pillars and tile floors. Sadly, much of the old-style Kerala architecture has been demolished or turned into tourist resorts.
From Attingal, Raju drove us in The Ambassador to the beach resort, Varkala. The back-roads were in very bad repair. This meant slower driving, but motion sickness. The trusty Ambassador climbed slowly (shocks creaking and groaning) in and out of the potholes, once again proving that it "rules the Indian roads." Throughout this portion of the journey, Raju ground the gears of the Ambassador and spit large gobs of red paan juice furiously out the window. Sitting in the backseat, Raju's red spittle occasionally sprayed me in the face. The Ambassador's window was jammed down and I suffered the consequences.
When we reached Varkala- a village on the sea fast becoming a tourist destination, we visited a large Hindu temple. Usually only Hindus are allowed inside, but for some reason, (probably my well-folded sari), I was allowed in to do pooja (prayer) and have darshan (a look at the God) of the enshrined Krishna statue. Kerala drums and instruments played continuously for Krishna's enjoyment. Outside the main shrine were several smaller shrines to the Kerala Nagas, (snake Gods). At one shrine we paid a small amount of money to have a priestess sing to the snake Gods. At a Nagaraja (Snake King) shrine under a special type of tree hundreds of plastic dolls hung in a sort of . At this shrine women come and offer dolls in hopes of getting pregnant.
On the Varkala beach one can pay a preist to propigate your ancestors with coconut offerings and Sanskritic prayers. I declined. Actually the Varkala beach was almost non-existent. Usually in the monsoon season the sea will rise up over some of the beach, however this year the sea has risen so much the beach is nearly gone!
From Varkala beach we visited the Sivagiri Mut Ashram. This is the ashram of the great Kerala caste reformer who preached that there should be "One caste, one creed, one religion, one God for all humanity." This saint, Sri Narayana, is very popular with lower caste people in Kerala. His shriine was very tranquil and well kept.
Next we enjoyed some backwater boating. Basically we went through the backwater canals scaring birds, burning diesel, polluting the backwaters, and disturbing villagers who were fishing and washing their cows. Actually dispite the drawbacks (namely the stinky two-stroke engine) it was a very pleasant trip thorugh the backwaters. Finally we took our meal at a hotel. Rrestaurant's here are called hotels- emphasis on ho, mind you. Of course we had Kerala meals- sambar and rice! What else.
Our driver, Raju, was extremely to the road, except when he was answering his mobile, rolling paan (a beetle nut chew), or talking over his shoulder to the people in the backseat. Much to my dismay, throughout the first half of the trip, the roads were quite good. The problem with good roads in Kerala is that when pavement is smooth there is nothing to slow the driver. Better road quality lends itself to Malayalee maneuvers such as, the pass on blind curve with horn-blaring, the run small farm animals off the road with horn blasts, and surprise the villagers with horn toots. In Kerala, the horn is a safety device par excellance, a communication beacon, and sometimes a musical instrument. Drivers use their horns with a frequency unknown in the western world.
We traveled to the small village of Attingal just north of Trivandrum where my friend, Dr. Bindu, lives in a refurbished 200 year-old home. The home has a red tile roof, wooden construction, carved pillars and tile floors. Sadly, much of the old-style Kerala architecture has been demolished or turned into tourist resorts.
From Attingal, Raju drove us in The Ambassador to the beach resort, Varkala. The back-roads were in very bad repair. This meant slower driving, but motion sickness. The trusty Ambassador climbed slowly (shocks creaking and groaning) in and out of the potholes, once again proving that it "rules the Indian roads." Throughout this portion of the journey, Raju ground the gears of the Ambassador and spit large gobs of red paan juice furiously out the window. Sitting in the backseat, Raju's red spittle occasionally sprayed me in the face. The Ambassador's window was jammed down and I suffered the consequences.
When we reached Varkala- a village on the sea fast becoming a tourist destination, we visited a large Hindu temple. Usually only Hindus are allowed inside, but for some reason, (probably my well-folded sari), I was allowed in to do pooja (prayer) and have darshan (a look at the God) of the enshrined Krishna statue. Kerala drums and instruments played continuously for Krishna's enjoyment. Outside the main shrine were several smaller shrines to the Kerala Nagas, (snake Gods). At one shrine we paid a small amount of money to have a priestess sing to the snake Gods. At a Nagaraja (Snake King) shrine under a special type of tree hundreds of plastic dolls hung in a sort of . At this shrine women come and offer dolls in hopes of getting pregnant.
On the Varkala beach one can pay a preist to propigate your ancestors with coconut offerings and Sanskritic prayers. I declined. Actually the Varkala beach was almost non-existent. Usually in the monsoon season the sea will rise up over some of the beach, however this year the sea has risen so much the beach is nearly gone!
From Varkala beach we visited the Sivagiri Mut Ashram. This is the ashram of the great Kerala caste reformer who preached that there should be "One caste, one creed, one religion, one God for all humanity." This saint, Sri Narayana, is very popular with lower caste people in Kerala. His shriine was very tranquil and well kept.
Next we enjoyed some backwater boating. Basically we went through the backwater canals scaring birds, burning diesel, polluting the backwaters, and disturbing villagers who were fishing and washing their cows. Actually dispite the drawbacks (namely the stinky two-stroke engine) it was a very pleasant trip thorugh the backwaters. Finally we took our meal at a hotel. Rrestaurant's here are called hotels- emphasis on ho, mind you. Of course we had Kerala meals- sambar and rice! What else.
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
GOD'S OWN COUNTRY - 2003/2004
With all the news from abroad about trouble between Islamic extremists and the Western world you might think that as two Americans living in rural India next door to a mosque we might have some apprehension about our surrounds. Nothing could be further from the truth. On a Fulbright grant to research dance in India, my husband and I lived in the South Indian State of Kerala for ten months. Our lesson in religious tolerance came when my husband and I decided that we had been staying in a hotel long enough. It was time to find more stable housing. Our first mistake was enlisting the hotel owner in helping us find a house.
Of course, he didn't want us to move out of the hotel, so he
showed us run-down traditional style houses without windows or indoor plumbing. While these houses had a certain rustic appeal, I did not want to end up sharing my bed with a cobra that might have found its way inside through the open windows. We elected to remain at the hotel.
Our housing search continued until a friend in the Kalamandalam school administration made some inquires for us and succeeded in finding a recently built house that was vacant. The family who built the house was living and working in the Middle Eastern gulf, as do so many Keralite families. We visited the house and it was more than we had hoped for- running water, a washing machine, a stove, and even a television!
It was also next door to a Mosque.
We decided we would move in as soon as possible, and that we would try to make friends with our Muslim neighbors. And so we rented our home from a local Muslim family, in a Muslim neighborhood, next door to a Mosque, across the street from a Muslim school. Throughout our stay we had uniformly excellent relations with our Muslim neighbors. Certainly, during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, the calls to prayer that regularly echoed out from the mosque loudspeakers increased in length and frequency. But aside from prayer-calls waking us up in the night, we experienced no problems as Americans living among Muslims.
There is a delightful acceptance of religious diversity in Kerala; Hindus, Muslims, and Christians all live side by side as friends and companions in the Keralite culture. From our outside perspective, Kerala seemed to be a land of peaceful religious tolerance. Muslims participate in Hindu festivals, and Christians study traditional Hindu dance. At night, firework
explosions from the Hindu temples blend with evening prayers sing out from the mosques.
Religious motifs decorate the dashboards of all the buses in Kerala. Hindu buses carry small statues of Hindu Gods, Christian buses have large pictures of Jesus, and Muslim buses carry pictures of Mecca. Every time I got on a local bus, I prayed that the religious icons would impart some Divine grace (or at least good luck) to the drivers. In Kerala, the rules of the road are very wild – it is the survival of the biggest and fastest, bus drivers careen
at breakneck-speed around blind curves and past cars – barely missing oncoming traffic. Our favorite buses were the religiously pluralistic busses. These busses feature lighted displays of a Christian cross, Mecca, and the Hindu God Vishnu, side by side on the dashboard panel.
We have found friends here who are Christian, Hindu and Muslim. Naturally people assume that we are Christian. Usually, I do not bother to contradict them. As long as people can identify us as belonging to one of the three major religions found here, we can move on to the more important questions about why my husband Grady has long hair, why we don't have any children and what we eat. It inevitably comes out that Grady does a lot of the cooking and that we share most of the housework. This causes a lot of giggles from both men and women.
Last weekend we were invited to our Muslim friend Shaheem's home for lunch out in the middle of a sea of green rice paddies. We were fed a colossal amount of traditional Keralalite foods on a banana leaf. After we were properly stuffed full of food we went on a visit to their closest neighbors. The neighbors, who have an old style traditional Keralalite home, are Brahmins (the highest caste of Hindus). They are great friends with Shaheem and his Muslim family. It was so wonderful to experience the easy friendship that we felt between Shaheem and his Hindu neighbors as Hindus and Muslims have a history of strife in India. Shaheem's best friend is a Christian. There is a gentle acceptance of religious diversity here, and acceptance that is inspiring. The beautiful weather, lush vegetation, tranquil beaches, stunning mountains of Kerala all make it an attractive place to stay, but it is the people, their gentle warmth, and religious tolerance that make Kerala, as the locals are fond of saying, "God's own country."
A version of this article was published in the book "Beyond Boundaries" a USEFI/ Fulbright publication, 2007.
Of course, he didn't want us to move out of the hotel, so he
showed us run-down traditional style houses without windows or indoor plumbing. While these houses had a certain rustic appeal, I did not want to end up sharing my bed with a cobra that might have found its way inside through the open windows. We elected to remain at the hotel.
Our housing search continued until a friend in the Kalamandalam school administration made some inquires for us and succeeded in finding a recently built house that was vacant. The family who built the house was living and working in the Middle Eastern gulf, as do so many Keralite families. We visited the house and it was more than we had hoped for- running water, a washing machine, a stove, and even a television!
It was also next door to a Mosque.
We decided we would move in as soon as possible, and that we would try to make friends with our Muslim neighbors. And so we rented our home from a local Muslim family, in a Muslim neighborhood, next door to a Mosque, across the street from a Muslim school. Throughout our stay we had uniformly excellent relations with our Muslim neighbors. Certainly, during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, the calls to prayer that regularly echoed out from the mosque loudspeakers increased in length and frequency. But aside from prayer-calls waking us up in the night, we experienced no problems as Americans living among Muslims.
There is a delightful acceptance of religious diversity in Kerala; Hindus, Muslims, and Christians all live side by side as friends and companions in the Keralite culture. From our outside perspective, Kerala seemed to be a land of peaceful religious tolerance. Muslims participate in Hindu festivals, and Christians study traditional Hindu dance. At night, firework
explosions from the Hindu temples blend with evening prayers sing out from the mosques.
Religious motifs decorate the dashboards of all the buses in Kerala. Hindu buses carry small statues of Hindu Gods, Christian buses have large pictures of Jesus, and Muslim buses carry pictures of Mecca. Every time I got on a local bus, I prayed that the religious icons would impart some Divine grace (or at least good luck) to the drivers. In Kerala, the rules of the road are very wild – it is the survival of the biggest and fastest, bus drivers careen
at breakneck-speed around blind curves and past cars – barely missing oncoming traffic. Our favorite buses were the religiously pluralistic busses. These busses feature lighted displays of a Christian cross, Mecca, and the Hindu God Vishnu, side by side on the dashboard panel.
We have found friends here who are Christian, Hindu and Muslim. Naturally people assume that we are Christian. Usually, I do not bother to contradict them. As long as people can identify us as belonging to one of the three major religions found here, we can move on to the more important questions about why my husband Grady has long hair, why we don't have any children and what we eat. It inevitably comes out that Grady does a lot of the cooking and that we share most of the housework. This causes a lot of giggles from both men and women.
Last weekend we were invited to our Muslim friend Shaheem's home for lunch out in the middle of a sea of green rice paddies. We were fed a colossal amount of traditional Keralalite foods on a banana leaf. After we were properly stuffed full of food we went on a visit to their closest neighbors. The neighbors, who have an old style traditional Keralalite home, are Brahmins (the highest caste of Hindus). They are great friends with Shaheem and his Muslim family. It was so wonderful to experience the easy friendship that we felt between Shaheem and his Hindu neighbors as Hindus and Muslims have a history of strife in India. Shaheem's best friend is a Christian. There is a gentle acceptance of religious diversity here, and acceptance that is inspiring. The beautiful weather, lush vegetation, tranquil beaches, stunning mountains of Kerala all make it an attractive place to stay, but it is the people, their gentle warmth, and religious tolerance that make Kerala, as the locals are fond of saying, "God's own country."
A version of this article was published in the book "Beyond Boundaries" a USEFI/ Fulbright publication, 2007.
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