“One of my favourites tells the story of two disciples of a guru, called Chaitra and Maitra. One day the guru gave them one rupee each and took them to two empty rooms. He asked them to use that one rupee to fill the room. Maitra rushed out to the bazaar and tried to find something for one rupee with which he could fill his room. Of course there was nothing for that price. And then he thought: ‘I will go to the garbage seller,’ and from him he bought a mountain of stinking rubbish and proudly piled it high in his room. But Chaitra meditated in his room and then calmly went out and bought a matchbox, an incense stick and an oil lamp. He lit the flame, filling the room not just with light but also a beautiful fragrance.
“When the guru came to inspect the two rooms, he turned away in disgust from the room with the garbage, but happily walked into the illuminated room which smelt of jasmine and sandalwood. The song tells the listeners to ponder the beauty of the story, and the lesson it contains: that good acts and good karma will bring people to you and cause them to love you, but bad acts will disgust them and send them away.
“Despite the criticisms they contain, many Brahmins still believe and have reverence for the theyyams, and when their priests and temples and astrologers are unable to solve their problems, they come to us and ask the deities for advice. In fact people everywhere in this part of Kerala are still very devoted to theyyam; all the different Hindu castes, and even some of the Muslims and Christians too, though they can be more secretive in their devotions. I think people like it because in a temple or a church you see only an inanimate image. Here you see the god in the flesh and you can speak to him and ask him about your worries. People believe very strongly that in a theyyam the god speaks to them directly. That is why people will travel a long way to see a performance, and once there will patiently queue to have a word with the god.
“As for the future, it’s true that many of the small shrines to village deities have gone, and many of the small local gods and their stories have been lost and forgotten. But of late I sense that there has been a revival. Some villages who neglected their theyyams found that their crops failed and they experienced dosham—misfortunes of some kind or another. So they consulted astrologers, who advised calling us back to begin celebrating the different village theyyams again.
“In other places, some of the more famous village shrines are now transforming themselves into big temples and people are coming all the way from Cochin and even Trivandrum to see the performances. People have even begun to sell posters and DVDs of the more celebrated theyyams. And the different political parties have all started supporting different deities—the RSS has adopted one theyyam deity, even though they are really a party of the upper castes, and the CPM support another, even though they are supposed to be atheists. So there is new patronage coming in, and it is possible to make a much better living than my father could ever have imagined.
“Certainly this generation seem much more interested than in my father’s time. Back then, many of the people in the towns dismissed what we did as superstition, saying that there is nothing in the Vedas about theyyam and that it is all a load of Dalit nonsense. For all the development and technology we now have, people still have not forgotten the power of the theyyam. They still know, for example, that a Pottan Theyyam can stop even the worst epidemics, and that other theyyams have the power to give jobs or help women conceive healthy children. One Brahmin came to my house last week saying he had been out of work for six months, despite going to the temple and praying every day. Yet after attending one of my theyyams he found a job in the Collectors’ Office the following day. He said the theyyam did what his own family temple had failed to do.
“I hope my two boys will take on my mantle when they are older. Already they are showing some skills. One is three, and the other is five. I feel good when I see them playing at theyyam and when they ask me to beat a drum for them. The only worry is money. Both my boys are at school, and if in future they can earn more money by learning some other skill, who knows whether they will carry on the family tradition? Some of my friends who are theyyam artists have educated their children and they have risen to be police officers and even military personnel. Sometimes these children take a leave of absence and come home in the winter to perform the theyyams, but with many professions that is impossible. As our people rise up and become more educated, I fear for the future. Who in the villages will still be able to take off three months to do this work? We will see.”
Nine months later, I was back in Kerala for Christmas, and went up to Kannur to see Hari Das. It was again the theyyam season, and I timed my visit to coincide with the day on which Hari Das was performing in the same forest kavu shrine where I had met him the previous year.