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| photo by Malgo Witter |
In December I spent three weeks away from the
kalari, mostly in Tamil Nadu. After visiting some friends in Chennai, I took
part in a rather anarchic Vipassana course, very uncharacteristic and slightly
surreal for the usually extremely ordered and austere Vipassana brigade. I seem
to have escaped rather lightly, my room being farther from the ongoing building
site than many, and none of my room-mates displaying any propensity to break vows
with daytime masturbation as distraction from meditating 11 hours a day,
which one unfortunate participant was greeted with on entering her dormitory
one day. I’m not quite sure how one deals with such an infraction while
maintaining noble silence. I should have asked her… In fact, I had extremely disciplined
roommates, one from Coimbatore and one from Tokyo, and we worked around each
other’s foibles in silent harmony. I did have some strange experiences with a
tadpole in my bathwater and an injured dog coming to me for help, but no, on
reflection, I escaped lightly.
Early January saw me back at the kalari, with
the remnants of an unhappy stomach acquired I Bangalore, and where my
adventures resumed.
4th January:
Bodies are strange things. Two
months of daily kalari, rivers of sweat and effort, and it doesn't much change
but 3 weeks of hardly moving at all and sitting a lot and I seem to have gone
all scrawny, judging by my practice clothes. Must be all that dissolving.
6th January:
Three days back into training
and I'm surprisingly pain-free for my three weeks off and two-day queasy fast.
Both Rajan and Hari commented I looked pale (there was me thinking they always
think I'm pale) but bar the slight stiffness of re-activated muscles, I feel
remarkably strong and mobile, my various strains and sprains still sleeping
with their holiday. At the end of practice this morning I was running through
one of my favourite movements, one I think in time translates to the short
stick. The forearms and spine undulate up and down like a serpentine sine wave
while the centre drops deep through the legs in a mysterious triangle. It's
very hard and I've been struggling to find the strength to support the centre's
movement, with which Rajan has never been quite satisfied and Sathya drew a
rare audible groan from me as he pressed me to the right depth some time back.
A Lebanese woman is having private lessons for the week and as I was practising
this across the kalari, Rajan pointed at me saying "See how her centre
pushes forward..." Miracles everywhere.
7th January:
Rajan has taken to introducing
me to foreign visitors (I have no idea how he describes me to local ones in
Malayalam) as a "senior student of the kalari". I know because he
told me this morning. I think this possibly speaks more for his affection than
my abilities, and just to put things in perspective, I took a (painless) whack
to the head with the long stick this morning. Up through the market later,
dodging the dust of the shopkeepers' sweepings or buckets of water thrown into
the street. Sometimes it's a choice between colliding with those or the
oncoming two-wheelers. Off to deliver aloe vera (as you do) to my Sanskrit
teacher and ask - as always - too many questions (he is patient. I wonder if
mastering all those grammatical forms and countless verses instils it as a
quality.) At the busy crossroads on my way back, a very elegant elderly lady
decided I looked clueless enough to hold my hand and guide me across the street
(one I've crossed unscathed and solo many times). Obviously, I need looking
after. It feels an eccentric sort of day, so one to reacquaint myself with the
sea, I think...
Santosh, who looks after my
sun lounger at Kovalam, is worried about my prospects. Technically, he's known
me for over three years now, so I guess he feels entitled. After asking after
my trip as I handed over payment, he managed to say with his usual smile (he is
well named) but somehow severely: "Next time you come with your husband,
not alone." Oh dear. So I went and hid under the waves with the fish.
23rd January:
"You've changed your
bag," said my friendly waiter at Mani Mess breakfast this morning. We
don't have enough common language to enter into a conversation about why I was
carrying a different bag. And thus continues my strange sense of belonging here
to everyone and no one.
24th January:
Between a cold and my period,
I've been off training most of the week, though I do go in every morning to
watch. Yesterday one of the lads asked me what he could do to mobilise a
particular area of his back so I took him through the specifics of a couple of
yoga asana (with wall, of which the kalari has lots of good grippy ones) and I
remembered that, oh yes, I like teaching and actually miss it a bit. The others
emerged in turn and we chatted as they waited for their showers. "Why are
you leaving?" asked one, as though this was a strange thing to do. Then
again he is the same one who pointed out some months ago that an Indian
president had married a foreigner - though who I'm supposed to marry to
circumvent the immigration catches, I'm not quite sure, no presidents being
forthcoming. He then told me about his grandfather, the famous Carnatic
musician in Kumbakonam and one of the others asked why I've taken up bharatanatyam
(curiosity?). They wanted to know whether Western classical dance has mudras,
so I gave them a brief ballet demonstration in my kurta and baggies, which all
in must have looked very peculiar in the gallery. We've all agreed that, cold
or no cold I'm back training in the kalari Monday morning.
In yesterday's Sanskrit class
I was given a brief lesson in brahmin table manners. Last week, Francesca from
the Vipassana course was staying in the house with me, sorting out a few things
before her return home. She is Italian, with everything culinary that implies.
We'd had a conversation about being a dinner guest here. Basically, you're sat
down to eat - usually very nice food which takes a lot of effort to prepare -
while everyone watches, which both of us find disconcerting. As many know,
eating together in southern European cultures is pretty much sacrosanct, so
Francesca's reaction at being fed alone was "Are you trying to poison
me?!" (Well they did have the Borgias in Italy.) My Sanskrit teacher
didn't look too impressed at our reaction and explained that giving food is
dharma (I think that's probably universal) and that here guests eat first. Plus
there are lots of complicated rules on which foods you keep separate, probably
originating with hygiene principles, and a taboo on sharing plates with anyone
who isn't a parent, child or spouse (so no communal nibbles. Well at least that
keeps my stash of dark chocolate safe). I appreciate the kindness (and the
food) on the occasions I am offered it here or there but I find it... well, a
bit difficult... being sat down to eat with everyone watching (or left on my
own to do it). For a start I feel like everyone is waiting for me to finish so
they can eat, which doesn't make for leisurely digestion. Then there's usually
a commentary occurring in a language I don't understand but quite often the
sense I get is that it's about how I eat - exactly, in fact, as Italians do.
And I'm really not sure my eating-with-my-hand table manners are up to that
kind of scrutiny. Plus it really emphasises that sense of separateness that
eating together in European culture is set up to dissolve. In the grand scheme
of things, of course you smile and accept the kindness and the custom. But I
think when I get back to Wales, I'll throw a large communal non-separate dinner
party. Anyone want to come?
27th January:
Well after a full week off
training (I had a downturn, so didn't make it in for Monday after all), I was a
bit weak and wobbly but back in the kalari this morning. "Do
tomorrow" said Rajan, who has also been ill, when we came to the
meippayat. I don't know if the temperature has ramped up this last week or if
I'm still sweating this virus out, but I steadily dripped my way through leg
exercises and postures. As always, the long stick suffered the most for the
break. "Observe the Western side when I do it with the others" said
Rajan. I just wish I were a little more together with the Eastern (student's)
side... I got a thumbs-up for my elephant posture practice from one of the boys,
not a usual occurrence and it made me laugh, so it's not all tragic. And then
my Sanskrit class was brought forward because my teacher has the day off school
(yesterday being a big day and a national festival) and so I attempted to wrap
my head around grammatical forms, rats dancing on sleeping lions and the little
boy whose father won't let sit on his lap because he's the son of the ugly wife
- so the sensible 5 year old leaves home to find god to solve his problem. And
now for an afternoon of "corrections" (I've discovered the non-PC
term is what works if you want to be understood: no "marking" or
"feedback") - anyone up for a discussion on the three upāyas in
Kaśmir Śaivism?... Unfortunately, in all this efficiency, I omitted to
replenish my supply of coffee, which might just be my undoing. And so unfold my
Trivandrum days...
29th January:
This morning Rajan started
teaching me the Western (teacher's) side of the long stick. I have a sort of
love-terror relationship with this weapon. Not that I'll get hit, though that
does happen occasionally, but in a reasonably painless way. The latest incident
was a couple of days ago when I found myself backed further into the wall than
usual and missed my block, thus receiving the stick in my groin. I heard an
audible gasp or two from the lads (they are few, but there are some advantages
to training as a woman. I count the fact this didn't hurt as one). "Always
defend!" admonished Rajan as he sent the next part of the sequence my way
and I peeled myself off the wall to recover posture. People tend to watch the
weapons rather than continuing their own practice, in part because it's
instructive and it usually comes at the point everyone is recovering from the
meippayat, and partly because the long stick takes a lot of space. This means
that all our less-than-perfections are very public. It makes for humility at
any rate, as we've all been thoroughly told what's what at some point or other.
There is something almost comical about seeing a very competent, soft-eyed
giant taking his berating so meekly, as I've witnessed on more than one
occasion. So the bottom line is I hardly feel qualified to practise the Eastern
side, let alone the Western.
1st February:
Today was an exercise
in apparent geometric impossibilities. Already with the Eastern side of the
long stick is the conundrum of circles that are lines and lines that are
circles. On the Western side, this seems to me even more pronounced.
Yesterday's lesson was on leading - and quite frankly, I find leading when
Rajan is the one working with me counterintuitive to say the least. Today we
moved on to a deceptively simple-looking series of attacks up into the groin.
They need to be circular but perfectly straight with a wicked and difficult
up-thrusting thing at the end. "It is difficult but it will come",
said Rajan mildly as he left, instructing me to work with Anoop who patiently
broke it all down for me. I struggle to manoeuvre the stick correctly without
dragging it into the floor (the stick is about as long as I am), as I struggle
with the lines that are circles and the circles that are lines. I can't blame
my height though. Anoop and Sathya are tall but Rajan is not and they all make
it look perfectly natural. Then Parashuram offered himself up to practise with.
It's a nice novelty with the Western side, getting to practise with
fellow-students, more like what I'm used to in aikido training. Then the three
of us tried to figure out why our inner thighs ache, Saturday not having been a
particularly gruelling morning. On leaving that day, Rajan had instructed
Charles to work with us on jumps - at least I'm assuming that's what was said
as that's what we all did in mingled nervousness, laughter and a few scraped
knees and elbows. Something about the landing and lifting of the legs in the
less terrifying jump (and hence the one I practised most) appears to challenge
the adductors. Ever mysterious.
2nd February:
After my struggles with
leading the long stick this morning and my head-clearing cold(ish) shower, I
sat waiting in the reception room in Sathya’s apartment upstairs. We were
working out the dates for the final part of my back treatment we’d started when
I arrived. It’s all a bit complicated, because there’s a huge festival the week
before I leave (the largest gathering of women in the world, at least it was a
few years ago – all cooking) so the kalari will be shut for a few days, and
Sathya and Rajan are teaching and demonstrating in Poland next month, so have
to go to Mumbai that week for their visas (and I thought my visa was a pain to
get. There’s no comparison. Travelling from Trivandrum to Mumbai is roughly equivalent
to a trip from Swansea to Madrid). And we also have to work round my menstrual
cycle, which governs a lot of what I can and can’t do and when. Time is a funny
thing. My first week here was taken up with the kalari puja (so no training
until the end of it) and then the first month – unless you’re starting as a
beginner – is really just getting back into the rhythm of things. And now this
last month, with its treatments and festivals and so on... The good news is
that Sathya says I can keep training while I’m being treated (usually you
shouldn’t) – but “gentle stretching, no sitting leg or lifting”. Coincidentally, as I was running through the
leg exercises this morning, I was trying to work out whether it’s possible to
engage in kalari “gently”. Talking with the boys yesterday about backaches
seems to have set mine off, and for the first time in ages, my pelvis feels
uprooted, fragile. I was reflecting, as I swung my legs across the kalari, that
this quality of softness a lot of people associate with me, actually developed
as a mechanism to deal with pain. As I’ve got older and stronger, I’m much less
often in pain (hurrah for age and miracles) but there were long stretches
through my twenties and a lot of my thirties when I never moved without it –
and the softening of landings and joints and muscles was a way of lessening its
impact. Well, suffering is a great teacher, as is the lack of inherent structural
shock-absorption. After a timely reminder from Rajan, I also asked Sathya about
sourcing a couple of long sticks to bring back with me. So now that is being
sorted (fortunately, if I ever get any further with the wooden weapons, the
others will fit into a suitcase; the long sticks, however, need special
packing), and I have instructions to put my medicine oils order into the
pharmacy, so they will be all ready for me when I go. “It’s the last month,” I
said to Rajan yesterday, when he popped by to collect some coconuts from the
garden and enquired about the timing of my flight. “Not a month, only 4 weeks,”
he reminded me. Indeed, alack, alas.
3rd February:
"Don't hit my hand,"
warned Rajan with a half-smile as I practised waving a stick as long as me with
some semblance of accuracy and technique. The responsibility of the Western
side is such that if anything goes wrong on whoever's part, it's your fault. In
one of our documentation sessions last time I was here, I distinctly remember
Sathya saying that if a teacher hit a student "he himself should be
hit". He half-laughed at the impropriety of it. It struck me at the time,
because Sathya is not at all a hitting kind of person. I am a little
overwhelmed by the quantity of information coming my way this week. My practice
of the Eastern side was hard and fast (which magnifies my faults) and Rajan
then started teaching me a totally new section I've never seen before, so it
can't come out very often. When I was back up for the Western side, we moved
from the stomach up-cuts to the (new to me) rib strikes. He called up
Parashuram for me to practise with. "If you hit his hand, you have to meet
all his expenses for one week. That was our punishment when we were learning.
You must meet all his expenses for one week." There was a very light
brush, but Parashuram claims it didn't hurt. Bichu avenged him later when he
kicked me in the head as I was helping his handstand. But let's hope Parashuram
isn't planning three meals a day at the Taj.
Amongst the interesting things
I learnt in today's Sanskrit class is that the ल (la sound, well actually li in this
case) in Kali is pronounced differently to usual लs - because we couldn't have Kali
sounding soft. If this were a t or a d or an n sound, the change in
pronunciation would qualify for a whole new letter, so I'm grateful for small
mercies of the alphabet gods. This came as I was being made to read through all
the prayers we have covered over the last few months. The traditional
building-block nature of my teacher's methodology suits me and taps into
strangely soothing memories of endless chanting and complicated rote learning
of French conjugations and grammar and poetry I did in humid classrooms as a
child in Gabon. First I'm given it as a dictation, then my spelling is
corrected which is actually an aural test, then I'm made to read it and my
pronunciation is corrected, then the grammar and meaning is analysed, and then
I'm left with it on my list of things to read as homework. We usually do
anywhere between one and three per class, depending on length and complexity. To
show me how it's done properly, Mahadevan chanted a few of them in between my
spoken efforts. "This is my aim, for you to chant like this," he
said. Needless to say, I'd be delighted to get anywhere near. I feel a bit like the talking rat in the story about the hungry lion
we're currently working on. Next class promises to be a marathon recording session so I have a record
of all the tunes and correct pronunciations. And I still find it soothing.
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| "to be recorded" list |
5th February:
Well today was stressful. I
don’t know if it was the far-too-long I spent at the computer yesterday or just
life’s little challenges, but my balance was definitely not at its best. “Days
are different,” said Bichu sympathetically, as we crossed at the end of the
kalari. And of course, it’s the day a photographer turns up. My Eastern side of
the long stick wasn’t actually too atrocious, just the usual faults with a few
minor improvements, the new sections getting a bit more fluid. Once everyone
had been, I was up again for the Western side. Well, I hit Rajan’s hand. Quite
hard. Everyone round the edges flinched. “Be in control”, he reprimanded
mildly, as he massaged it. Of course I was mortified and everybody knew it and
they smiled sympathetically when I’d finished. “Practise with them,” Rajan instructed
as he left. Yesterday, when he’d gone and I picked up the stick on the Western
side, there was a definite frisson in the kalari. But today everyone had got
used to it, even me. I didn’t hit anyone else and everyone volunteered himself
in turn to practise - which actually I really enjoyed. And then Charles and
Parashuram very patiently helped me work on some of my problem areas (my wrists
being one will come as no surprise to my aikido sensei). It really brought home
how fond I am of them all, how much kindness and generosity has come my way at
the kalari. Waiting for the shower, I had a lesson on the ingredients of
Bichu’s banana-leaf-wrapped breakfast (packed food is very elegant here) and
explained what ratatouille is to Darshan. Bichu wanted to know whether my
family is vegetarian (no), and then how long I have been. “But you know the
taste of non-vegetarian food!” he exclaimed, as though it were akin to
necrophilia. And then I had a discussion on ahimsa (non-harming) and its
complexities and contradictions with Parashuram, who is always very thoughtful
on such matters. Still a bit discombobulated, I cheered myself up later with a pistachio sharja, which breaks all Ayurvedic rules and all my
food-colouring ones. Later on when I enquired after Rajan’s hand, he clearly
thought I was hilarious, so I think I’ve been forgiven.
17th February:
Well, it's turning into a
medical few days. Here's my small fortune (relatively speaking) in kalari oils,
kindly prepared for me by Gita in the pharmacy, all ready (bar much wrapping in
towels) for their trip to Wales. I began my 5 days of treatment with Sathya
this morning, later than planned as my body has been rather thrown by the
events of the last few weeks and my cycles are not cooperating. I forget how
intense the kizhi treatment is (herbal bundles wrapped in muslin, dipped in
heated oil and then used to massage). It's hard to say why because it's not
forceful. Something about the heat and the oil and the sense of it penetrating
right between the bones of the spine so that something a little bit
overwhelming releases. Or perhaps it's Sathya's wizardry. Or perhaps all of the
above. The bad news is my frankly traumatic last few years have taken their
toll on my poor struggling body. I'm off for blood tests before dawn as Sathya
detects changes in the joints of my hands and if it's the beginnings of
arthritis, now is the time to deal with it. In Ayurveda, problems in the joints
are a symptom of digestive imbalances and digestive imbalances cause changes in
the blood, hence tomorrow's test. I feel a great sense of grieving for my body,
as though it's something separate to me I've not been able to care for properly
- very much actually as I felt about the poor, bright, injured dog who came to
me for help during the Vipassana retreat at Arunachala, sleeping at my door
once I'd given it, and who apparently later died at the shelter he was taken
to. Bichu cheered me up afterwards by fulfilling his promise to show me how to
tuck a lunghi properly (my long-serving one from Rishikesh which has been round
the world in many guises), ably abetted by the kalari cleaning lady who fancies
my flip flops. So now I can dress like a South Indian boy, if not a girl. And
then more cheering up at the dentist. No really. It was my first check-up since
one in the Himalayas in 2012 and my teeth are still fine, filling-free and now
cleaned and polished too. But there's something a little bit blue about all
these leaving preparations. Ho hum.
18th February:
So this is what I look like
after pre-dawn blood tests, kizhi treatment and practice. The photo looks drier
than I am. I was sternly told off by Sujith in the kalari clinic for doing too
much but protested I am dutifully following doctor's orders. And here's the
Kumbakonam coffee to perk me up post blood test and requisite fasting.
Kumbakonam coffee is supposed to be a bit special (this one was very nice), as
is the chanting. Perhaps next visit I'll go find out. The dirt on my forehead
is from all the salutations - so if nothing else, I am humble.
It's interesting the effects
of this kizhi treatment. Today I've felt like my bones are cooking - in a good
way, however little sense that may make. I've been sitting at my computer half
the day kicking out heat like a little furnace, the fan turning over me but
nonetheless drenched. And it's no hotter today than it was yesterday or the day
before. After this morning's conversation with Sathya as he treated me, I think
I'm getting off lightly. Kizhi works right into the spine and so has a strong effect
on the nervous system. Apparently, some people who carry a lot of tension,
especially around the neck, can end up hallucinating or with fever over the
first couple of days. Hence the injunction to rest. So a bit of cooking,
really, is fine.
25th February:
Today
I got a purple knuckle. I guess it had to happen once before I leave. Long
stick learning curve. On the plus side, Peter asked if I'm practising the short
stick (the next weapon along). I'm not, but I'm flattered he even considered it
a possibility. I think I'm doing subliminal Malayalam in the kalari, because 3
meippayats and the salutation later and hardly a word of English had passed his
lips.
6th
March:
And so
now here I am, back in Wales after the strange momentum of my last days in Trivandrum
and so much simple warmth and kindness from so many people there. I reflected, as I have in the past, that one
of the nicest things about having a week of treatment with Sathya is that you
actually get time to talk to him on a daily basis, a rare treat as he is always
so busy. Even if 7:00 am is not the most naturally conversational of times, I
learned about all sorts of interesting things: Ayurvedic approaches to
arthritis, traditional Kerala coconut toddy (“You should try it”), now largely
supplanted by scarily poisonous industrial alcohols that have never been near a
coconut, though apparently the natural version is making a come-back, Malayalam
astrological stars, people who think they maintain traditional south Indian
eating habits but actually don’t, naturopathic cures, scholars who are passionately immersed in their subjects versus those appointed to assuage politics or the marketplace… Arjun one day said something slightly daft, I can’t quite remember what, but then excused it by
explaining that I am like his older sister, so such slips are normal. And it
occurred to me that I feel very much like that around all the lads at the
kalari, and a little too around the foreigners who pass by. Sujith one morning
insisting on sharing his breakfast with me, and then Arjun bringing in his
mother’s sweet iddly, followed a couple of days later by Darshan’s mother’s puttu
(I think that’s the name; I never remember it). Taking everyone to Mani Mess
for breakfast on my last morning and my friendly host there squeezing my hand
and wishing me “good journey”. And the
things I seem to know that others don’t, so that when Malgo, the Polish woman
currently training at the kalari, suggested Parashuram taste her breakfast,
half-laughing at his look of embarrassed horror I was able to say “You don’t
share food off your plate with a brahmin,” then asking “but how does that work
with chocolate bars?” “Oh, you just
break it with your hand,” said Parashuram, relieved that appropriate table
manners were restored, “you don’t bite it.” Parashuram later putting me on the
back of his bike to help me with my final purchases of coffee and star anis
(discovering the Malayalam for that created much confusion and laughter amongst
us all, one of the clinic’s patients enthusiastically involving himself). Bichu’s and Parashuram’s lessons one lazy
morning in Carnatic music (“He knows a lot about it,” said Parashuram in some
surprise about Bichu – and he really does) and various caste and religious
customs, And Bichu asking me for the umpteenth time “Why are you going?” and me
looking at him and struggling to find a good reason. Mahadevan, my Sanskrit
teacher handing me a book of poetry and insisting I read it (and the English
commentary, thankfully) daily, Rajan stopping by the house to help me wrap up
the long sticks Anoop had prepared for me, complete with a label all printed
with my address in Caswell. Gita’s repeated kiss and cheek-pinch and hug. And
all the time wondering “why are they fond of me?” But very glad they are.
I felt
quite bereft leaving. And now here I am on my Gower seascapes, still dizzy with
the changes, wondering at this adjustment and what it might bring.
from Lucy, with love x
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