Gujarat was fun, but I was really excited about the next part of the trip - 11 days in Kerala. Kerala is India's coconut palm tree paradise. But in reality, it is a small state with an INCREDIBLY diverse range of landscapes.
Mary and I ended up in Kochin in the evening and were met at the airport by a representative of the vehicle company that would be driving us around during our time there. Our transfer to the small town of Kuttipuram near the Bharatpuzha River (Nila River) took on the order of three hours, and we arrived at the Riverside Retreat "Resort" around midnight. We were greeted by a large cottage type accomodation which was neat. But neater were the FROGS that had taken up residence on our shower curtain! Brilliant!
We slept well, because we were just really tired. Our first morning excursion after breakfast was to the Kerala Kalamandalam - a school where youths from all over Kerala were taught classical Indian music, instrumentation and dance. I really enjoyed the visit to the school because it put into perspective the way that the traditions of India are built. How masters are made, in a sense. The only thing that it lacked was a summary - it showed all the pieces of how Indian musical art is made, but it never put them all together. It would have really been cool to see students of dance and those of music joining together for a short performance at the end of the visit to demonstrate to visitors what the finished product looks and sounds like.
After lunch, though, we were treated to a live lesson and performance on the growth, development, and advancement of Keralan percussion. Centered around an old village temple, the master, Aravindakshi, demonstrated along with other students and members of his family and village the various types of percussion and wind instruments that pervade the music of Kerala. One by one, each instrument's design was explained and played for a short period. We were then explained how the instrument progressed to it's next form, and so on and so forth until we reached the janda, a large two-faced instrument that is the percussion of choice in Kerala's many dances such as Kathakali. Then after the progression explanation was complete, the artists put together the various instruments simultaneously for one VERY cool percussion jam session.
But the best part of the "Musical Trail" was not the actual music. It was the people themselves. Members of a lower caste, they are not allowed to perform at "more important" temples because they are not brahmins, despite the fact that they ARE masters of their respective instruments. So they host these private performances to supplement their income from other jobs (Aravindakshi was a bus conductor) and to share a bit about the musical history of Kerala. It definitely was far from the Made-For-Tourists version that I'm sure most people run into.
We thought day one was pretty good, but we had no idea how cool the next days were going to be.
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