For years I have maintained that I would have married a Tamizh payan (Tamil Boy) if not for my husband. There is inexpressible love I feel for the language, Tamizh to me is like Italian, lyrical beyond comparison. As a child I had Rajettan my maternal uncle who I always spoke to in Tamizh, it was our secret bond. Then there were Chakravarthi, Raja, Kumar, Sheela and the entire entourage from my grandmother’s printing press who spoke to me in Tamizh and introduced me to songs like “Adi Ennadi Rakamma”. This was all many years before A.R. Rahman arrived and made Tamizh music cool.
My husband and I have lived in Austin Town a predominantly Tamizh locality for over four years now. Everyone from my help, vegetable vendor and the auto driver love the fact that a Malayali Ponnu (malayli girl) speaks such good Tamizh. Austin Town never ceases to amuse be it the drunken brawls or the festive processions there is always entertainment promised. Year after year I have watched the Dusherra procession awestruck; there are chariots with all sorts’ of colours, and gadgetry. This time I watched with a heavy heart for there might not be a next time, we move out of here next year.
Each year as I watch the Dusherra procession go past, the sweaty and hysterically agile Tamizh boys dancing before the chariots catch my eye. They do the DappanKoothu a dance form made famous by the suppressed Dalits of Tamil Nadu. With migration to cities the Koothu (meaning party) is now popular in urban slums. There are drums of every possible size; there are moves that would put Prabhu Deva to shame and the music has a delirious trance like quality. Rhythm seems intrinsic to these dancers, they move in absolute carefree abandon. Loud clapping, firecrackers and whistling accompany the deafening drums; this is truly the poor man’s Mardi Gras. The drummers tease by changing the beat ever so often and the boys never fail to come up with a unique dance move. Every single time I see one of these processions I tell Sidharth, “If only I had detachable boobs, I would have danced with these guys.” I say this each time knowing I will be called porki (loosely meaning loafer ) I bob my head endlessly, I run into the bedroom do my own small dance routine, come back running and watch again wonderstruck and jealous. The woman folk don’t join in; they walk alongside the procession, with plates of vermillion, flowers and turmeric. I wonder how they resist the urge to jump in and let loose, for this form of dance could only be therapeutic. For all you know the custom must have eroded owning to the pressures of middle class shame, pride, honour, morality and city living.
I remember a long while ago we had relatives from Kerala who visited our home at KGF. While traveling to our place they were stuck behind a hearse van. Now, the hearse van was mistaken for a wedding procession due to the bunch of drummers and dancers who were leading the van with the tunes of DappanKoothu! TheKoothu on the occasion of death is supposed to signify the death of a great man who never bowed. This honorary gesture however was never understood by my relatives who were too shocked at what they discovered. This incident sealed our fate as a family, who lived amidst pagan, uncivilized, Tamils! And cousins in Kerala used it against me at every give opportunity.
I wish I could have told my brethren that I prefer a funeral with dance and music to wailing. Or even better to the boring western concept of a stiff, upright ceremony with black veils, shades and all!!! There could be no better way to bid adieu to life than with music.
The only other person I know of who had a radical outlook to death is my late father-in –law. He told his kids to have a whisky party for him on his death anniversary and to remember him in giddy happiness. So each year we light a lamp, place a drink at his photo and down glasses of his favorite whisky. Be it the whisky party or the DappanKoothu , celebrating life that once existed is the best way to both remember and say goodbye.
Musician and friend, Christopher Avinash once told me that the appeal ofDappanKoothu lies in the fact that it is an even time signature making the rhythm both repetitive and predictable. I cannot help but believe that this powerful, native, raw music is the core of all of us. Maybe this is why the same loved one who calls me porki cannot resist sporadic movements at times on hearing this rhythm.
Years ago I stayed at the Kanuvu (Dream) School in Wyanad, Kerala. The school is run for Adivasi children from the surrounding villages and aims at keeping the traditional community ways of the Adivasi’s alive. Over other customs the children are encouraged to make indigenous musical instruments, learn folksongs and dance every night before they go to bed. Each night the children and the guests assemble around tribal drums, flutes and musical instruments to dance to the music of their soul. I vividly remember the energy from this night of dancing as astonishingly cleansing and liberating. I also remember now that the tribal music at Kanuvu was the repetitive even time signature!
The boys dancing at the Dusherra procession wore pants that threatened to fall off the next second, berets, converse shoes, and Bob Marley t-shirts. The coloured spiked hair and bling reminded me of the Hip -Hop artists I see on VH1. On a normal day, I would have disliked these characters as much as I dislike most Hip Hop icons. But every time I see these Austin Town boys dance I melt. I feel fuzzy warmth when I see that their western appearances have not succeeded in killing their native rhythm. I feel respect, for unlike many of us who feel ashamed to dance the koothu which is considered lowly and crass by many, they do so in absolute abandonment. They do not mind surrendering their bodies to the pure joys of rhythm, dance and music. We have a thing or two to learn from them.
Year on year I have seen this ritual of faith and raw energy unfold and all walls of judgment collapse. What remains is the sheer pleasure of rhythm and spirit set free.
