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“ Did you see those trees madam ? “ asked my driver as Ilooked out to see a road lined with a handful of trees with stunted and bare branches. “ Itwas such a beautiful stretch, now the trees have all gone after the cyclone,”he added,” First it was the tsunami, now it’s thane .”
I was on the road , on the outskirts of Pondicherry town,driving past a huddle of villages and fishing hamlets. It was my millionthvisit to the erstwhile French territory and my first after the cyclone Thanehad ravaged the town, destroying homes, resorts, streets, trees, livelihoodsand plans at one go. The villagers were yetto come to terms with the cyclone that had raged more than five months ago.
We drove towards the sea, away from the main road and arrivedat a secluded beach , except that there were mounds and mounds of sandseverywhere. We drove past the dunes and saw the last mile of land jutting out into thesea.
The Bay of Bengal presented itself - a canvas of blue surrounding us, as the seagulls chased imaginary boats. A lone biker stopped at the edge of land’s end aswe walked along and looked out into the sea . A handful of locals were swimming . I was told thatadventure and water sports was planned on the sea shore, but had been shelvedafter the cyclone.
As I drove past the French quarters, I hoped to see a different perspective ofPondicherry, besides Aurobindo ashram and Auroville. “Maybe Arikamedu ?” suggested the driver, butI told him that I had already been to the excavated site where trade relationswith Romans was discovered ,way back in the first century. We nevertheless drove towards the ruins andsaw some brick walls, remnant of an old monument , surrounded by wilderness and overgrownroots, lending an eerie air to theatmosphere. Cyclone Thane had left itsmark here as well.
My journey resumed and then I met fifty two year old Muthulingam, whoshowed me another facet to this town. Atherookoothu artist, he was engrossed in an intense performance at the Big Beach resort, where I chanced uponhim. A group of men and some men dressed as women, wearing bold make up dancedaround, throwing dialogues in the air. Fascinated, I watched as the performerslost themselves in a world of epics, filled with demons and demi gods.
Muthulingam told me that there were performing a play basedon the Ramayana and the story veered around Bharata’s son and a demon who camefrom Ravana’s lineage . He narrated with gusto, breaking into a dialogue ,while the other artists danced around in tacky costumes. The performances howeverwere power packed.
Muthulingam later told me that today there were less than 50therookoothu artists in Pondicherry. He handed his card to me and proudlyproclaimed that he had been performing since he was seven . “ They put some powder on my face and said , go act..That was the first time I hadever played a role. I was Sahadeva fromMahabharatha, “ he added, getting nostalgic about how his cousin got himinterested in the world of plays and performances.
Muthulingam and his troupe’s diary was blocked for the nextsix months. They had selected their plays based on the Ramayana and Mahabharataand the Siva Purana. “Temples, resorts,villages – we will now go from village to village performing,” he said addingthat the shows will be usually in the night and could go on for eighthours. “ We are paid Rs 9000 a show andwe would do about ten shows in a month . Sometimes a show would have even 20players, but we share all the money ” he shrugged .
Muthulingam was a self taught artist but he lamented thatthere were not many takers for street theatre, even from his own family today.“ We are too cultured for our own good . No body wants to dance, yell, performon streets, people do not even consider it art anymore,” he complained as the lightswent off on the show.
The sea called .I walked along the shore, letting the waveswash away patterns on the sands . The cyclone might have affected the life ofthe city, but here were folk artistes trying hard not to let their art go intooblivion. “ Well tourism helps to some extent, today it’s the Big Beach Resort ,tomorrow, we may be in another place , but six months later, when the seasonends, we will have to find jobs as security guards or something else,”Muthulingam’s words echoed as the waves flowed and ebbed.
I was on invitation by Club Mahindra for the relaunch of their Big Beach Resort post Cyclone Thane that had ravaged Pondicherry on new years eve last year. This story was published in my column, Inside Story in The Hindu Metro Plus
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