Carnival of Poetry...a crazy jaunt from beach to backwaters

Our beach break was at Mararikulum at the most wonderful homestay we have ever stayed at. Halfway down a sandy track, impossible to get to even in a rickshaw! 

Jeejo welcomed us with fresh pineapple juice and afternoon tea and snacks were served at 4pm each day. Each night there was a candlelit dinner on the lawn with fish fry, tuna curry and an incredible selection of Kerala style veg. Breakfast was also an artwork! 

We went on a country bus to Arthunkal, where the basilica is one of the most important pilgrimage sites in Kerala. It is considered as a holy land by hundreds of thousands of devotees, of Christian as well as other faiths. 

A procession, carrying the graceful statue of St. Sebastian, from the church to the beach and back, is the most important event of the feast. Interestingly, an eagle is seen roaming the skies, every year during the time of the procession. 

This eagle too has become part of the grandmothers' stories, about the presence of St. Sebastian as a guardian saint for the village. We missed the main procession but still the pilgrims were queuing in a long line to enter the church led by a drummer under decorative umbrellas. The streets were lined with stalls, more like a fairground, with an old fashioned hula hoop game attracting hopeful crowds! 

Everywhere you sense the spiritual link to the sea. Each little lane runs down from the church to a white cross on the beach. 

At the last minute we cancelled our last night as we were invited to the carnival of poetry 5 hours drive north. Our friend Wilson picked us up at 6am and by lunchtime Charlie was reading a poem in English for another Keralan poet in a forest clearing! 

We rapidly mounted a show of our work and sat most of the afternoon talking to students. They were bubbling with enthusiasm, the girls all colourfully dressed in flowing salwar kameez. 

One girl, speaking perfect English poignantly talked about how could she ever leave the confines of her orthodox Muslim family, flunking her first year of Zoology to gain another year before marriage. Kavitha, our artist friend, herself a professor at a university, encouraged her to complete her studies, find a good job etc but we both knew inside she was trapped. 

Afterwards Kavitha and I talked about the contemporary situation in many religious groups in India, changing aspects of caste, and how Christian girls trained as nurses to work abroad to make their escapes. 

The evening ended back in the forest clearing where Wilson and a flautist prepared to perform. Then the heavens opened! 

We eventually presented Jigsaw Artists Collective with speeches in a lecture theatre, and Wilson read Poetree to the flute accompaniment...a beautiful end to the day.

Wilson stayed up all night with his poet friends so the college paid for a taxi back to our backwater homestay. The ancestral home of our host Kosygin, whose father was a leading agriculturist. 

This is set right on the waterfront, an idyllic location in the middle of nowhere, so peaceful, just the sound of birds, the odd canoe going up and down. 

We walked through the tiny villages watching the pattern of everyday life, collecting water from a tap, washing clothes in the river, smiling people hiding the hardships they all suffer, a broken bridge meaning no vehicular access and despite constant requests to government to sign of repairs in sight.

We took a government ferry across  Vembanad lake, the longest lake in India and the largest lake in Kerala! 

Charlie fished in a tiny lake near our home stay, apparently he caught a tiddler but he threw it back to grow! 

I dined on the famous Karimeen Pollichathu, Pearl Spot fish cooked in a banana leaf, but so spicy I could hardly taste the fish so next day I had one fried...delicious! 

 

Biennale bits

We started the biennale blindfolded in a room with a view

 

An interactive experience called Symphony of a missing Room - An imagined Museum by Lundahl and Seitl. We were gently led through seemingly invisible places, with a narration through head phones, the feel of walls, maybe grass underfoot and then into water. 

Is this what a near death experience might feel like?

The blindfold was finally removed and we found ourselves in Sea of Pain by Raúl Zurita, a poem dedicated to the brother of the Syrian toddler washed up on the beach.

Another large installation by Desmond Lazarostruck a cord with me reflecting on the migration of his family from Rangoon, Madras, to Leeds and Liverpool, through old home movies and Polaroids.

In dance of death by Yardena Kurulkar, the flickering light bulbs which begin to fade, not only represent the date of the artist's birth but the passing of time towards death.

But the work in the biennale is not all doom and gloom! 

We loved playing the puzzle games by Orijit Sen, searching for hidden items in his Goan market illustrations, and finding the missing pieces in his amazing mural of the Grand Trunk Road, which ran through northern India connecting Afghanistan and Bangladesh, but now overtaken by a modern express highway.

In Durbar Hall, over the water in 'town' aka Ernakulam we loved Gary Hill's installation which projected images of the onlookers from tiny cameras hidden in a giant silver mandala hanging from the decorated ceiling, creating multi faceted reflections all around the huge hall.

Finally I was inspired by the work of Israeli artist Meydad Eliyahu, who like me is looking back at his Jewish heritage. His father migrated from Kochi in 1954 aged just 6 to live in Israel, alongside 2000 other Kochi Jews, but they never told their stories and their silence inspired the artist to research this missing chapter in history.

Pop up art

As well as our jigsaw collective exhibition at Loafers cafe, Charlie also approached Biju at Master's Art cafe to show his digital work based on Portuguese connections in Goa. Biju's father was a famous writer, teacher and historian and even the road here is named after him.
Now the cafe is also the Indian base for a charity called Yoga Charitable Institution which supports all people in need in Kochi. The cafe sells beautiful crafts made by hand in a nearby workshop. A local homestay welcomes visitors from France and donates a percentage to the charity. So breakfast at the cafe is full of lively chat in French every morning! The banana pancakes are pretty tasty too!

The next pop up show is in the DYFI ( Democratic Youth Federation of India, linked to the Marxist Communist party)  reading room, or vayanashala in Malayalam. 

This tiny space offers today's newspapers for anyone to sit and read, the wall decorated with a striking portrait of Che Guevara. There is also a meeting room and a back room with a TV in the crumbling building, where anyone can watch or sleep. Each day Charlie has been going back to chat and photograph the people who stop by, most of whom give him an address to send the photo! 

Finally Mr Flypost aka CH has been at it at the crack of dawn in the streets again, with full size posters screenprinted with random poems that he imported in his rucksack! 
'Stick no bills' is a common sign here, but the manager of a heritage hotel told him of walls owned by the church where he thought he could get away with it! 

It happens to be right opposite  one of the main biennale venues! 

Poem Puzzles

"Four years ago in Kochi we met Vimal, who invited Charlie to make an exhibition at his book shop...ones of those places where locals and travellers alike pass by to browse and chat. 

Two years on and C asked Vimal for the names of some Malayalee poets to include in his work. Vimal emailed the names of classical (dead) poets! 'No...I need living poets' he replied.

So we came to meet Kuzhur Wilson, three days after the death of his mother. 

A poet two days older than our son. An immediate bond.

A day later we met Kavitha Balakrishnan, an art history professor at the Gov. Fine Art college in Thrissur. Chatting over lunch we caught site of her matchbox poems on the desk! 

Since then C has shown their work in UK, at Kurt Schwitters Merz barn in the Lake District, Manchester MMU, Blackburn museum, and Kavitha reciprocated by hanging Charlie's original poet pictures outside on washing lines in the lanes of Trikana village. 

In Goa last year I joined the group and Jigsaw Artists Collective was formed. You can see our work here https://jigsawartists.jimdo.com

Our first collective  exhibition opened in Loafers Corner cafe last Tuesday, when Kavitha also launched her new poetry book. We made speeches and drank coffee and ate cake! 

COK ... chill out zone

Aka arrival in Kochi ...you know you are in India when you are directed to walk down a side corridor marked etourist visas to a room chock a block full of people, albeit with chairs, and there is only one immigration officer to process your entry. It's a bit like the doctors waiting room on a Monday morning. 

Until of course a man from the land of my forefathers starts to tell the entire crowd we need a system...so we all start to play musical chairs with our hand luggage until our turn eventually comes.

There was no need to panic though because our luggage was still not on the carousel after an hour of waiting. 

Eventually we get one bag, but no sign of the rucksack which contains half our forthcoming exhibition in Kochi! Over twenty people are told their suitcases never left Dubai...but we are in luck it's under a pile of dubious looking cardboard boxes!

We whizz through the morning traffic to the homestay where we have been coming since our first visit four years ago.  Our rooftop home from home.

Straight into the Tea Pot cafe for brunch...Indian rarebit and the best samosas ever.

Another impatient tourist says he wants a curry without chilli because he is allergic to it and then walks out because the food, which is all cooked to order has taken too long to arrive! 

India really is a place where you have to learn to keep calm and chill out! I will try to remember this!