Strange as God

It was October, my favorite time of the year as it marked the beginning of the festive season for most places in the northern part of Malabar.

I remember gazing at the sky that night, which resembled the cleaned blackboard in school with a few chalk marks on it. When we left our house I had checked the time, it was past 2, so I guess by now it would be around 4. For me, as an 8-year-old boy who was not allowed to leave the house after 6 in the evening, I was experiencing a time far beyond my bedtime. However now, not so much as an ounce of sleepiness was bothering me. I was in the middle of a huge crowd, young and old alike gathered around the temple. The place was lit by flames and handheld torches. The sound of the drum beats got the crowd going, with some of them shaking their heads along with the progressive rhythm. The shirtless frenzied drummers were sweating all over as they beat out every bit of their energy in perfect synchronicity.

We formed a cluster around a small, sandy ring. A few policemen were around us to control the overgrowing crowd. More people came in with time, pushing their way into the ring as we all waited eagerly for the much-anticipated Theyyam to begin.

A couple of young priests came in and placed a wooden stool in the center of the ring. Just a few seconds later, the Theyyam figure appeared. His body was covered with vibrant costumes and a humongous headgear. His face painted gleaming orange-red and various red designs spidered across his face with his wide eyes sunken in black pits. He had two silver teeth projecting out from the sides of his mouth, altogether giving a god-like appearance. He stood upon the stool for a few minutes while the priests surrounded him with light palm frond torches, swishing embers off into the air and loudly reciting slogans.

Suddenly the theyyam jumped off the stool. The god had arrived. A sense of awe filled among the people as he made a spin around the ring, coming in close quarters with the crowd with his menacing laughter. He performed several stunts with his sword enacting a mythological warrior character and furiously walking over burning fires, the drums too were at full energy to match the performance. 

Theyyam, not being a staged act, made the spectators hold their breath in fear, not knowing what to expect. A few friends of mine closed their eyes and hid behind their parents not being able to witness the supernatural, but for me, I wanted to find out what really was happening.

I found it hard to come to terms with the person I was watching in front of me, performing this ferocious act. The more I look closely beyond the colors on his face, sure, I recognize him as my dad, but the actions he was capable of didn’t match with the one I talked to and played with, that evening. I remember him as a person who always needed his glasses to see things, but now I see him not just recognizing people, but foretelling their future, and giving them life advice. He was able to see many things that were not possible for him in normal life. I am looking at him and I don't see the same person I see every day. He was no more the person who caressed me and made toys for me with palm leaves, he had transformed into something else. Those same palm leaves were decorated around the crown that made him act like a god.

While walking back home after the performance, I overheard a few men mocking the act and saying ‘No god, only whiskey’.

Long after getting home, my mind was still wandering with thoughts about how someone could pull off such an act. How did he know all the things of people who came to him for his blessings? Was the thing about alcohol true? Did alcohol have magical powers? The curiosity in me was brimming with unanswered questions, waiting for dad to come back home. 

The next day evening when dad was home, working on his headgear, I asked him, 

“Can I also be like you ?”

He adjusted his glasses and gazed up to face me, puzzled

“What do you mean? “ 

“Can I also be a warrior who foretells people’s future?” 

He had his typical laugh, the one which he always used to do whenever he was asked anything. The laugh provided him with time to think of what to say. 

“Oh yes, you can but it isn’t easy“

His face gleamed with a sense of contentment as if he was expecting me to ask the same. He paused his work and walked towards me.  

“You have to follow a strict lifestyle of rigorous fasting and purify your mind and body to become a vehicle of god,” he said.

“Are you god? “ I asked 

 Putting his hands over my shoulders, he laughed again.

“ Sometimes,” he said “ After hours of make-up, once the dancer puts on the headgear, he no longer sees himself in the mirror. He becomes possessed by the mythical God about to perform. The dancer is no longer in control of his actions, his body transforms into a medium for God to bless his devotees”

I heard all this in bewilderment. But there was one question that troubled me. 

“Is it true that you drink whiskey to be a god?”

He took his hands away from me and looked at me in shock. 

“ Who told you all that? “ he asked in a harsh voice. 

“ I heard a few men at the temple talk about it “

He leaned down gently and came face to face with me.

“ Listen,” he said in a much calmer voice, “ people would say many things about this art, but what you have to remember is that a dancer can never be possessed by God if he doesn’t believe in him. Belief in God is the most important thing in a Theyyam dancer’s life. “ 

While we were talking a couple of his friends came and asked him to come along with them. 

“Radhaamanii” he called out for mom who was in the kitchen “ I am going out, you take care of the child “ 

Mom appeared near the door, I went towards her and we stood there watching dad with his friends pass our lane. 

“Mom,” I asked, “Did dad ever drink whiskey?”

“Yes,” she replied, not so pleased.  

“Why?” I asked

She came close to me and grabbed me by my hands.

“ Promise me you won’t ask dad anything about this. I am telling you this because I don’t want you to make the same mistakes as your dad”

“I won't, “ I promised. 

According to mom, all the theyyam dancers were required to be in a trance state to perform all the dangerous activities. During the season which lasted 3- 4 months, they took the help of alcohol which shielded them from the physical pains and stress of the performance. She said for a theyyam performance, the dancers worked continuously day and night for weeks preparing, without proper food and water, which negatively affected their health. She mentioned how our uncle, a theyyam dancer, died at a very young age because of this stress and alcohol consumption.  

“And all this effort for what?” 

Being a theyyam dancer meant that you have to look for other jobs to support the family, as the income from this art during the season was inadequate to run the family for the whole year. 

“ I want you to study well in school and get a college degree,” she said “Only education can help you become aware of the things happening around you”

For the following days of the season, I observed dad closely. I secretly followed him to places he went with his friends and caught him many times going to a toddy shop across the river. Whenever I was in the green room with him before the performance I saw him drinking from a disguised bottle which he called the holy drink, by now I knew what it contained. This went on for the whole season. 

But even long after the festival got over, his alcohol addiction refused to fade. He went out with his friends every evening to the toddy shop and came home at night fully drunk. Mom would often get into arguments with him. I would lay in my bed listening to their fighting, trying hard to control the growing hate towards dad.

When the god acted upon dad, the whole village worshiped him. But once the season got over, it was the devil who possessed him and the only witness to it was mom.

One night their fights got physical, he started hitting mom badly with the flap of a tree. I couldn’t simply sit in my room listening to her scream for help. I went into their room and pushed him down. I screamed back at him as loud as I could, pointing fingers at him. It made me feel relieved because I had at last found a way to throw my criticism of him into his face.

But from that day, he stopped coming home, which meant no more fights at night but it also meant no money. Mom finally decided to go to work. She went from house to house and washed clothes for money. But what she got at the end of the month was hardly enough for the two of us. My school fees added a huge toll on our financial crisis. It was due for months and it reached a point where the management called my mom to school. That day after coming back from school, she stayed all day in her bed and cried. At night when I got really hungry, I asked her for food.

“There is no food in this house” she shouted.

“But I am really hungry, mom “ 

“ If you are that hungry, go, ask your dad for money,” she said.

I slept that day wrapping a cloth around my belly suppressing the hunger. 

One night a week or so later, we went to see dad before a performance at the nearby temple. He was in the green room, laying on a bench and one of his helpers was over him applying make-up on his face and body. My mother and I were standing a few feet away from him. Recognizing us, he stopped the helper and turned his head towards us to reveal his half-painted face.  

“It’s not for me,” mother said “ It is for your child, I am asking you money”

“Come here, my boy, “ Dad said, stretching his hands towards me. 

I stared at him with anger and didn’t move.  

“He can no longer go to school without the fees, ” mom continued.

“ I haven’t got anything to give you,” he said with his typical laugh. 

“ You should be ashamed of yourself to let your child starve” 

“He can come and live with me,” he said and then looked at me

 “I will teach you how to be God. You will get enough to eat and drink here and no longer worry about school fees” 

“ I don’t want to be like you, I want to study,” I screamed at him. 

He looked at my mother and laughed louder. 

“You told him to say that isn’t it,” he said.

“Ramendra, Give that boy something, “ the helper said in a tone of sympathy. 

Dad stretched for his purse and gave me a 50 rupee note. 

I looked at mom and she shook her head in despair. 

“Is this what you give him for a living” mom asked

“This is all I have got, “ he laughed again. 

“Stop that laugh,” she said “ If there is a god, he will pay you back” 

 He slowly sipped the holy water from the bottle and said

“ I am God.“

We came back home, packed whatever our bags could hold, and got on a bus the same night to Trivandrum, where my mom’s brother lived with his wife. They were happy enough to welcome us and said we could live here as long as we wished. My uncle helped me get admission to one of the schools and also helped us financially. We were slowly adapting to a new life, which seemed much easier. I made sure that I worked hard on my studies, I graduated from one of the reputed colleges and even went to do my masters. 

After we got here, I never talked about dad anymore and tried to forget all those episodes with him. Until one day, when I was reading the newspaper I came across a news story about a theyyam dancer who got fatally burned during the performance. Following the news, I searched for the name ' Ramachandran' in all the hospital registers I could get my hands on. 

Finally, after almost 20 years since the day we left the town, I was going to see him again. He was in the same city as I was in. He was burned almost to death, with nobody claiming to take responsibility for him, and finally somehow ending up in a charitable home in the same city in which I was the mayor. 

When I visited him, he was on his bed. His body, almost completely burned and the skin was only starting to recover, he more or less lost his eyesight after the incident. I sat alongside him and talked. He still had the same laugh he had since the time I saw him. We chatted about all different things for a long time but never once did he recognize me as his son, so I continued talking to him as the mayor of the city. He showed memory impairments and certain symptoms of mental illness.

From the time he left us, I had been adding to a queue of questions to ask if I ever met him again. But right now, what am I supposed to ask this man who couldn’t even recognize me as his son. The hatred I had for him all these years seemed to just melt away as I could only pity him for his fortune. 

The more I started to spend time with him, the more I realized the traits we had in common. The resemblances of our faces, the similarities in our voice, the quirks. Despite the closeness of the traits connected by blood, we were strangers forever. Strangers living in entirely different realms of realities.