Kathakali by Kathleen

On January 14, we went to temple Junction to catch the 5pm bus. We wore our best Christmas outfits, I wore my dress with embroidery, Jane wore her green sari and Rob and wore his lungi and shirt. We sat on the first bus for half and hour. When we got to Attingal, we wandered around the broken, sewer-smelling sidewalks as we looked at the banana and cloth selling shops. We soon found a very fancy restaurant, which was the first restaurant we have been to that the waiters have outfits. After eating supper, we hurried off to catch a bus to Thonakkal. Once we got there, we still had to get to the temple to see the Kathakali. An auto-ricksaw took us.

As soon as we arrived some people moved to give us three chairs. The ladies sat on one side and the men on the other. We soon got a seat at the front and at once saw the faces much better. But it started to go on for a little bit so we went to the backstage to see the painting and met some of Aunt Jane’s friends. We were impressed how they could put the make-up on themselves. One of Jane’s friends was Umnithan, who was playing Shiva, the most important player in the Kathakali performance.

Once they got into their woodsman costumes, they started to admire themselves. He said that he had snakes in his pockets and a moon in his hair. Soon a boar came rushing out and he shot at the same time as Arjuna did. They started to fight and shoot arrows at each other. Quickly, Parvati, Shiva’s wife, started telling him “stop, this is your follower”. Since Shiva did not listen, Parvati hurried over to Arjuna and said “stop, you don’t realize who this is and if you don’t stop right now I will turn your arrows into flowers.” Arjuna shot again and his arrows turned into flowers. Parvati gave another announcement and said “there are no more arrows in your bag if you don’t stop shooting right away.” He shot again but then there were no arrows, so they started fighting bare-handed. Arjuna got spun and spun around and lost the fight. After they finished the fight Arjuna realized that he had been fighting with Siva, one of the most important gods in Hinduism.

After the play was finished we went to the back to see them get their make-up off and say good-bye to the players. The person playing Shiva gave me his chin chooti and Rob his funny flowered nose. It was almost midnight by the time we got home and I was half asleep.