SOS THEYYAM - Pepita Seth (Kerala )

If I asked you how you would enter a house of worship what would you say, whether a believer or not? With respect, you’d say, respect for another man’s sense of the divine, for his awareness of what powers his universe, what nurtures his soul, what gives him hope, what touches him.

Well let me tell you this: you are in a minority and if you want proof go to Malabar and see what is happening. Malabar where ancient and powerful gods and goddesses have, for two millennia, sustained their devotees, supported the down-trodden, blessed the faithful, healed the sick, answered the unanswerable, punished the guilty and revealed the divine. The gods, the daivams, the Theyyams of Malabar have moved with splendour, have danced with fire and swords, have nurtured and been at the core of a remarkable culture. Have been. Until times began, as some say they should, to change.

By change we mean that it’s now ok, hey it’s even a good idea, to see what can be got out of Theyyam. Which means that in these days of globalisation, the quick-fix, the sound bite and the instant thrill you can market Theyyam. You can in fact use the image of a goddess men and women have trembled before to sell paint or amuse a tourist as he sits clutching his beer. Better still you can put the divine on the tourist’s agenda, dumping him in shrines, encouraging his cameras to flash, whirr and intrude, the word sacred unknown in his vocabulary as you too ignore the gods, reject common decency and make the proverbial quick buck. All the while convincing yourself that you are helping Theyyam that you are, indeed, promoting it.

Or you can be more devious. You can suggest seminars, documentaries, workshops, museums, folklore centres, You can stress the importance of research. You can start the insidious shifting of Theyyam from ritual to performance, moving it away from the sacred, ignoring that it is an act of worship. You can even start the destruction of its sacred spaces, the divinity of the ancient and life-sustaining groves.

Or you can stop.

You can stop, stand back and watch in awe. You can stop turning up with your cameras, your notebooks and declaring your inability to pay anyone, you can keep your promises when you say you will send photographs. You can respect Theyyam’s majesty, its divinity. And above all you can respect its practitioners, the people whose remarkable knowledge and wide ranging skills are at the heart of Theyyam. You can remember that Theyyam’s inner core and the energy that sustains its participants and the force that powers it is the basic human need to have communion with the sacred and divine. You can behave like a human being. That’s all you have to do. For if you don’t you will contribute to the abuse, the decline, the erosion of one of the world’s most remarkable acts of worship. Theyyam’s façade is spectacular, its costumes elaborate, its makeup fantastic but do not be deceived: the sacred heart of Theyyam is mysterious, as deep as an ocean, silent, still and powerful. It is also fragile, tender and intimate. And therefore vulnerable.

Pepita Seth was born in London and originally worked as a film editor. Although it was the chance discovery of a family diary that brought her to north India in 1970, her next visit was to Kerala. From then on, between work assignments, she made regular visits to Kerala and, by 1979, had given up all film work. Driven by her passion and respect for the region’s culture and traditions, she began seriously photographing and writing about the rituals of Kerala’s Hindus. In 1981, she received official permission to enter Kerala’s temples. In 2001, encouraged by the temple authorities, she began work on Guruvayur Temple. Her book, Heaven on Earth: The Universe of Kerala’s Guruvayur Temple, the culmination of 7 years research and documentation, was published last year. From 1993 to 1999 she was in Malabar focusing on Theyyam, a project she always regarded as unfinished and has now returned to. She lives in Thrissur.



 

Mojgan Jahanara (Iran)

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