It’s nonetheless darkish at 4.20 a.m. and the crowds are slowly constructing. The environment is akin to a carnival, underpinned by stalls promoting plastic toys and hard-boiled eggs. Friends are greeting one another; one in all our set is busy attempting to purchase a child’s friendship with biscuits, however Biscuit Baby firmly retains her distance. The regulation quota Kerala has of grey-heads is on full show right here. As the chenda beats begin to collect steam, the air slowly turns electrical.
We are on the Thee (fire) Chamundi or Ottakolam theyyam, and the meleri (sacred pyre) is slowly being prepped to turn out to be a mass of glowing embers into which the koladhari (practitioner) will repeatedly fling himself. As with all theyyams, this too has a back-story, of Agni the fire god aggressively difficult all of the gods. Vishnu takes up the problem, throws himself into the fire 108 occasions and after all, emerges unscathed every time, completely extinguishing Agni’s boastful delight.
The meleri stoked to smouldering embers
| Photo Credit:
Sheila Kumar
Our ‘storyteller’, the luxurious performing artist Sangeeth Bhaskar, has managed to steer us to a vantage level. But right here’s the factor: wherever we stand, individuals shuffle alongside to present us a greater view, typically giving up their very own spots fairly fortunately. We meet with this Malabar model of graciousness all by means of the journey, and realise that outdated cliché is definitely true: the north Keralite is admittedly the nicest in the entire tiny strip that makes up God’s Own Country.
Raktha Chamundi theyyam
| Photo Credit:
Sheila Kumar
2,000-year-old ritual
We are on a ‘Theyyam Lite’ journey, attempting to take in as many performances as we are able to in a packed schedule in Kasaragod, in northernmost Kerala. The north is the birthplace of the ritualistic artwork kind that usually runs from the tenth day of the Malayalam month of Thulam (in mid-October) until the center of Edavam (in late May/early June). The ceremony — the place the performers signify deities, native heroes and ancestral spirits by means of elaborate costumes, make-up, and dance — takes place in temples and sacred groves.
Puliyoor Kali theyyam
| Photo Credit:
Sheila Kumar
We have been listening to experiences of giant crowds (extra lovers than devotees) massing at theyyams in the Kannur space, cell cameras out, loud chatter filling the air. Suma, the proprietor of the Ayurvedic spa subsequent to our resort, congratulates me on having come to Kasargode to look at it. The divinity hooked up to the ritual diminishes as one goes south, she informs me sagely.
The 2,000-year-old ritual of theyyam has its roots firmly planted in faith. The second the intricate and fascinating face-writing of the koladhari is completed and the mudi (headgear) is placed on, the transformation is full; it’s the deity — Shiva, mom goddess Chamundi, Bhadrakali, Gulikan (a fierce type of Shiva), forest deity, tiger, monkey, snake — who’s now controlling the theyyam.
The face-writing course of
| Photo Credit:
Sangeeth Bhaskar
There is full religion evident in the locals, however they carry it frivolously, watching the ritual with attribute impassivity, chatting, casually going as much as get blessings from the koladhari afterwards. I watch slack-jawed as fairly just a few girls make a financial providing to the koladhari, then have his assistant give them change for the massive notes they proffer!
The thee theyyam is tough to look at. The koladhari has a protecting skirt of ola (palm fronds) round him, however I discover the perimeters of the skirt are glowing, tiny embers sticking to them. His two assistants, who’ve mastered the angle at which they need to allow him to fall on the fire mound, are glowing with the sweat of their efforts.
Sangeeth tells us of an much more dramatic theyyam, that of Kandanar Kelan, a legendary warrior who survived a forest fire with assist from the divine, the place the koladhari enters a roaring fire and at occasions, stands in the center of it, too. We resolve we shouldn’t have the abdomen for that; as it’s, I’m gasping each time this koladhari flings himself on the reside coals. And he does it 14 occasions.
Kandanar Kelan
| Photo Credit:
Thulasi Kakkat
Koladhari standing in the roaring fire
| Photo Credit:
Thulasi Kakkat
Muthappan and a pug
At the well-known Parassini Madappura Sree Muthappan Temple, which is 20 km from Kannur city, we watch the Muthappan (a personification of Vishnu and Shiva) koladhari work together with devotees. Since he’s a canine-friendly deity whose acquainted is a canine, he blesses a pug too, incongruously dressed in a crimson skirt and shirt.
Poomaruthan theyyam
| Photo Credit:
Sheila Kumar
The informal nearly festive air is in direct counterpoint to the depth of the theyyams being carried out. At the Adot Moothedath Kuthire Pazhayasthanam Sree Padarkulangara Bhagavathi Devasthanam in Kanhangad — simply 12 km from the medieval Bekal Fort, the most important fort in the state — we’re given ringside seats by Raghavan, a temple committee member, and repeatedly urged to eat the meals ready on the temple. It’s a neighborhood effort, with everybody pitching in to supply a healthful sadya, topped by a merely divine paruppu payasam. We are seated on a separate platform, heaped plates of meals are delivered to us by a genial Raju, and we’re launched to a complete host of native dignitaries on their approach into the pandal for lunch.
A quiet second with the koladhari
| Photo Credit:
Sheila Kumar
For me, the perfect second of all comes when a younger Muslim man in a cranium cap comes as much as the Poomaruthan theyyam for recommendation, a beatific smile on his face. Truly, theyyam is for all. And all avail of it, too.
The author is a Bengaluru-based creator, journalist and manuscript editor.
Published – March 21, 2025 03:28 pm IST
