The hour was eleven in the night. I stood by a wooden pillar in the women’s enclosure of the temple. I knew no one in the jostling crowd and had waited sleepily for close to an hour for the karimkutty chathan vellattom to begin. A vellattom is a prelude to the actual theyyam itself where the artiste dons a simpler costume (all vellattoms regardless of which theyyam they belong to, look alike) and perform a smaller version of the actual theyyam’s routine. In another ten or twelve hours, the same artiste would then become the personification of the Karimkutty chathan as the theyyam. The preview generally has a song as part of it – called a ‘thottam’ which explains the story of the character behind the theyyam or how that particular theyyam came to be.
After what seemed to me to be a rather long wait, the chenda drums began to beat with a fast rhythm quite different from the slower beats that marked the official start to the vellattom a while back. The karimkutty chathan vellattom then rushed into the arena with each of his arms being held by a young aide. The area inside the temple was not a large one. One side hosted the men’s and women’s enclosures with a large well to the east of the women’s section. In the centre was the structure housing one of the idols and directly opposite was the entrance to the temple complex. Five feet high laterite walls surrounded the space. People thronged everywhere as the members of the temple committee tried their best to push back the crowd so that the vellattom would have enough room for the performance.
As the chenda beats waxed faster, the vellattom shook with suppressed fury pulling at the men who held him back and bellowing in anger. Each gesture and step displayed power that refused to be contained. His enraged growl was a primal sound that filled the watchers with unnamed dread as he launched headlong into the crowded women’s section. Seeing him a few inches away from me, I was mesmerised by the terrific display of madness in his beautifully painted eyes. The eyes were rolled up showing mainly whites as his head moved from side to side like that of a beast scenting his prey. One leg was outstretched on the steps beyond which I stood watching with awe. All the while he continued to growl in a low-key and was being pulled back continuously.
Leaping back, he headed straight for the well and made a mad dash to jump into it while his aides frantically dragged him back. He continued to lunge at the crowd in the different sections and kept shaking his arms crazily so the aides jumped up and down in time to the chenda beats. After a while he yelled loudly and threw off each aide one after the other and continued his furious dancing. The rhythm suddenly changed and slowed down and just as quickly his madness passed and was replaced by a wicked playfulness. He walked up and down jauntily. He beat his baton on his shield. He looked saucily at the crowd and grinned.
Just as suddenly, the chenda raged again and so did the vellattom. He jumped up high, twirled in continuous leaps and filled the entire arena with his breathtaking performance. The torch-bearers surrounding him beat the ground with their coconut frond torches or ‘chootu’ sending up sparks amidst which the dancing karimkutty chathan appeared to be the true manifestation of the devil himself.
I was riveted by the awesome display of madness, playfulness, power, beauty and grace all in one performance. It was well after midnight by the time we got home and the images would not leave my mind – nor would the throbbing chenda beats stop resounding in my head. I could close my eyes and see as clearly as if he were before me again, that incredible whirling and leaping in the other-worldly light of the ‘chootu’ backlit by the flying sparks and underscored by the racing rhythm of the chendas dashing towards that final crescendo...
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