Word: kerala
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Dates: during 2001-2001
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...production marks the stage premiere of Grave Affairs, a radio play written six years ago for the BBC by co-director John Mathew. The play takes place in the fictitious village of Matoor, in the real district of Kerala at the tip of southwest India. Matoor’s population includes people of widely varying religious faiths—Hindus, Muslims and Christians—an assortment that makes for insecure relations and latent hostilities, not to mention some interesting graveyards...
...Kalarippayat is said to be the world's original martial art. More than 2,000 years old, it was developed by warriors of the Cheras kingdom in Kerala. Training followed strict rituals and guidelines. The entrance to the 14 m-by-7 m arena, or kalari, faced east and had a bare earth floor. Fighters took Shiva and Shakti, the god and goddess of power, as their deities. From unarmed kicks and punches, kalarippayat warriors would graduate to sticks, swords, spears and daggers and study the marmas - the 107 vital spots on the human body where a blow can kill...
...landmark: the synagogue, set amid the blue-shuttered pepper warehouses in the neighborhood known as Jew Town. There, on the synagogue's floor, may be another clue to Zheng He's visits: Guangzhou-made porcelain tiles, several centuries old. The synagogue is the legacy of a Jewish presence in Kerala dating back to A.D. 70. But it's not much to look at, just an ordinary house on an ordinary street. Built in 1568, it now caters to a few score local Jews and thousands of tourists. The narrow lane leading to the synagogue is full of shops selling dubious...
...Before leaving Cochin, I return again to the Chinese nets. I read that old plaque. The nets were brought to Kerala between 1350 and 1450. I watch eight men lower one of the nets - a giant wood-ribbed umbrella, suspended from a 30-m wooden spine by a complex system of ropes and stone counterweights - into the water, hold it there for a minute, then haul it out by pulling the ropes like some ancient tug-of-war with the backwaters. The men win, but the prize is paltry: a few eels and some nondescript fish, no more than...
...mimic the high-kicking fights and gravity-defying leaps in Jet Li's Romeo Must Die and Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, are hiring kalarippayat fighters and teachers like Kumar as stuntmen. They're even making sure Bollywood stars have basic training. "Even five years ago, Kerala martial arts had nearly died out," says Kumar, who with his two brothers runs C.V.N. Kalari Sangham in Calicut, among the best known schools in the country. "Now suddenly it is popular again and it's all because of these films." This time around, there are no plans to keep kalarippayat...