The charm of Kannur
It has to be my penchant for everything 'Keralese' which got me to Kannur to watch Theyyam.If you ask me what I knew about Theyyam before I watched it live... nothing at all. I have heard of it mentioned in Malayalam movies,.. remember seeing the fantastically dressed up artists dancing to persistent drum beats. To me it looked all out of a page of a tale from yore... Much later during a series of interesting conversations with a Theyyam enthusiast I got to know more about the art form; the fact that it originated from religious traditions and grew in form and character with the changing times, was something which intrigued me. I wanted to know more. The Nine Lives by William Dalrymple has an entry on the Dancer of Kannur. That story spoke a lot about the artists who masked their faces from real life and adorned the visage of a God or a Goddess offering counsel and showering blessings to devotees who come to visit them.The ordinary man from next door attains th...