As the train drew in to the station at Thissur Kavitha and Rajesh were on the platform to greet us! Jumped into the car and dropped our bags off at the homestay and after a huge Indian breakfast in the hotel opposite we sped off to the Government College of Fine Art to hang our exhibition.
Back to the college the next day to meet the students and talk about our work and then we headed off to Irinjalakuda to Kavithas parents home. Kavitha was brought up here and we had fun seeing her childhood home, school and college, and the school where her father Balakrishnan taught.
The following morning Kavitha and Balakrishnan took us to the local foundry, where huge brass temple ornaments are made. I've never seen anything like like this in my life! We walked through the sparkly showroom to the dark dusty workshops at the back where every stage of the lost wax casting was in progress. Each item is first moulded in wax with absolutely perfect precision, then coated in mud ready to go in the furness where the wax melts away and the molten brass is poured from a crucible into the mould.
No health and safely regs here, the guys are barefoot, and lifting the moulds and crucibles out of the fire with huge tongs.
Then comes the cleaning and polishing to finish the object. The owner of the foundry is a former student of Balakrishnan's or Masrrar ... 'master' ( in recognition of his former career) as everyone calls him, as were many of the shop owners and other people we bumped into in the town.
No health and safely regs here, the guys are barefoot, and lifting the moulds and crucibles out of the fire with huge tongs.
In the afternoon we went for a drive in the countryside to find a local village Hindu temple festival, where Kali is worshipped. We were made to feel so welcome, partly because Balakrishnan is so affable and chats to everyone! The drummers played with such incredible intensity for over an hour and several men worked themselves up into a frenetic trance to become the human embodiment of the God and bless the women carrying offerings. At the same time we watched two men making a temple painting on the floor with coloured rice powder, shaking the colours through a sieve made from half a coconut with incredible accuracy. Later over dinner we talked with Kavitha ( who is a professor of art history) about the nature of perfection that we had witnessed that day in the foundry and in the temple painting. Or maybe the nature of human imperfection?
Our poet friend Wilson had invited us back to Kuzhur to meet his friends and neighbours who have essentially lost everything in the devastating floods of last year. His village was one of the worst effected in the the region, and as we drove towards his house there were still ruined houses along the lanes. The government has given very little help, but these are resourceful folk who are rebuilding their lives in the best way they can. We arrived late, and everyone was there, but we hadn't expected a local TV crew!
A long hug with Wilson, and then we sat in his semi built house and talked about how we had all met, through Charlie's poet project maybe five years ago, and tried to show our empathy with the experience of our own village flooding two years ago, although in Kuzhur the water level was over 2 meters high! Wilson lost practically everything, but he has kept what he could salvage from his mother's house in a wooden box. Now he has started a plant nursery outside his house.
A delicious lunch was put together by neighbours and rice came from a local hotel and we ate off banana leaves on a makeshift table made out of a bed and a plastic rug.
Beef, tapioca, beetroot, different pickles and chutneys...a real feast which we managed to eat with our fingers in the traditional way!
Next day we went on a trip to Thumboormuzhi river gardens and Athirappily waterfalls, following the river Chalakudy upstream through wild forests and date palm and cashew plantations, the hills shrouded in mist. On one bridge was a warning not to swim in the river because of crocodiles! The waterfalls are stunning, though YouTube footage at the time of the flooding is terrifying.
On our last day Charlie is interviewed by St Thomas College,, while I try to upload this blog! Sadly Google seems to have forgotten about blogger which won't work on an iPad and I lose it all ... very frustrating!
We called in for a cuppa at Kavitha's parents house in Thrissur, with such a warm welcome, sitting around the table chatting to her mum and son Adi, who is so like Basti.
We popped into a huge supermarket, bustling with customers on Saturday afternoon and sales assistants on every aisle ready to help you ... unlike back home! Outside on the main dual carriageway there's an elephant leading a Republic Day procession, followed by roller-skate teams from all the local schools, brought up in the rear with scout cadets marching their boots off ... traffic completely gridlocked ... where else but in India!
A week full of such diverse and rich experiences, talking about art, politics, marriage, caste, food, comparing our different cultures.
A week full of such diverse and rich experiences, talking about art, politics, marriage, caste, food, comparing our different cultures.
