02/09/07
Tous mes voeux! / Best wishes!
Il fait si chaud qu'a part une rapide escapade sur la plage presque deserte, peu d'occupations sont possibles. Un Espagnol passe et repart. Deux americains passent et repartent. Une canadienne, Sam, reste un peu plus que les autres et nous passons des heures a discuter de mythologies, de theatre, de poesie... Et puis elle repart elle aussi.
Moi je reste. Je tiens. La solitude me pese et me rappelle l'enfance et ses longs dimanches d'ennui, l'etroite possibilite de nouveaute. Adulte me voila inactive a nouveau et je dois me repeter que c'est parce qu'il va y avoir de nouveaux theyhams, des costumes rouges, que c'est pour mon projet... que je dois rester.
Le soir je me glisse sous la moustiquaire. Il y a un trou quelques part dans la sallle de bain et beaucoup d'insectes rentrent: j'ai le soir des araignees, une enorme mite et trois ou quatre gros cafards installes sur ma moustiquaire au dessus de moi.
Un soir, enfin, Korian m'emmene chez un voisin assister a un 'house warming". Le theyham n'intervient pas seulement dans le temple: il peut etre appele a benir une maison nouvellement construite, comme ce soir. La ceremonie est plus simple que dans le temple et un seul personnage entre en jeu: le mutapan.
J'arrive un peu anxieuse: la foule, l'alcool, ont rendu l'experience precedente penible.
Le visage du Tehyham est maquille mais aussi son torse. Une coiffe faite de fleurs et de feuilles fraiches est posee sur sa tete au dernier moment... voila, il n'est plus homme il est le Mupatan. Il danse et saute et parfois jette du riz, de l'alcool de palme, sur des offrandes posees au sol. Plus la soiree avance plus la transe s'accentue. Il bondit, epee au poing, chantonne des incantations etranges. Les couleurs coulent sur son torse. Et puis il s'asseoit enfin pour recevoir la longue litanie de questions. Bruissement de saris. Il donne des morceaux de sa coiffe, une fleur, une feuille... Quand la coiffe est entierement detruite l'etat de transe tombe, le theyham redevient homme, epuise.
Quelques jours apres cette experience, Sam est arrivee a Costa Malabari et nous discutons tranquillement, sirotant un jus d'ananas frais sous les ventilateurs alors que le soir tombe. Il nous semble soudain entendre des tambours. Korian n'est pas la... nous partons a l'aventure dans le labyrinthe des sentiers. Les palmiers noirs, paisibles, nous saluent, ombres chinoises contre le ciel marine. Et puis soudain l'un d'entre eux se dresse, immense. Il scintille de mille feux: les lucioles y ont elu domicile et il ressemble a un arbre de Noel dont certaines guirlandes tres regulierement s'eteignent quand d'autres s'allument. Nous restons longtemps sous l'arbre magique, emerveillees comme des enfants, et ne reprenons notre marche que parce que les tambours nous appellent.
Quand enfin nous les trouvons la ceremonie a deja commencee, c'est a nouveau une benediction de maison. On nous offre des pois chiche enrobes dans du papier journal et une sorte de gateau frit fait a base de pate de riz. Le Mutapan est la, avec son gros ventre gonfle et son masque de papier autour des levres. Il marmonne des prieres presque inaudibles et soudain laisse entendre un rire fort "oh oh oh!". Il ne manque que les clochettes et les renes a cet etrange Pere Noel, et on peut imaginer sans peine que ce que lui murmurent les fideles n'est en fait que la liste des presents qu'ils desirent pour Noel... Sam decide la premiere - peut-etre rassuree par cette vision familiere - de le questionner aussi. Je la suis. Sam fait traduire son voeux: 'love", de l'amour. Mais le traducteur ne comprend pas bien ce mot et le Mutapan repond que dieu, "god", est deja la, partout autour d'elle, et meme dans sa tete.
Moi aussi j'exprime mon souhait pour de l'amour, un homme donc! mais aussi un enfant.
Enfin il arrache quelques petales a sa coiffe et les met entre mes doigts. Il demande que me soit traduit: "J'ai prie tres fort. Si tu as un enfant tu dois faire le voeux de revenir ici". La promesse est faite.
Between theyhams, waiting. The Malabari guest house is far for everything. No internet cafe, no restaurant, and even phone's reception is difficult. It's hot and humid.Clothes stick to the body. Around the garden palm-trees lean and wisper. Ferrets run around in the grass. The tenacious army of mosquitos attacks at dawn, when the sky turns pale above the hudge beach and the last screams of children get lost in the waves. Soon you don't see a meter away, you have to watch your steps not to walk on a snake. Fireflies fill up the darkness and mix with the stars. The cook makes barracuda for me every night and rice with a full set of delicious little curries which ingredients are systematically mysterious to me.
It's so hot that appart from a little escapade to the almost empty beach, very few occupations are possible. A Spanich passes by and leaves. Two Americans pass by and leave. Sam, a Canadian woman stays a bit longer that the others and we spend hours discussing about mythology, theater, poetry... and then she leaves as well.
I stay. I hold on. Loneliness bears upon me and reminds me of childhood and its long boring Sundays, the narrow possibility for novelty. Now an adult here am I again inactive and I have to tell myself again and again that it's all because there are going to be new theyhams, red costumes, that it is all for my project... that I have to stay.
At night I slide under the mosquito nest. There is a hole somewhere in the bathroom and a lot of insects are getting in: at night I have spiders, a hudge moth and trois or four big cockroaches installed on my my mosquito nest, right above me.
But I hold on. I stay.
One night, at last, Korian takes me at a neighbour's house to attend a "house warming". The Theyham does not only take place in temples: he can also be called up to bless a newly built house, as tonight. The ceremony is simpler than than in the temple and only one caracter is present: the mutapan.
I arrive a bit anxious: the crowd and the alcohol have made the previous experience hard. But this time is quite different, I am welcomed as a guest, kids are pushed away to let me sit down, I am offered something to drink.
A little shrine has been built in the middle of the courtyard and the chairs are circling around it.
The Theyham is getting ready in a corner. An other is crushing the pigments on palm-trees leaves: lemon yellow, red and a very bright orange, almost fluorescent, that I can't imitate with my watercolor. The red is made form a ochre pigment which once mixed with coco oil turns to bright red.
The performer's face is made up and so is his torso. A flowers and fresh leaves made headdress is set on his head at the last moment... there, is not human anymore, he is the Mutapan. He danses and jumps and sometimes throws rice and palm-tree alcohol on offerings laid down on the ground. The latest in the evening the more intense the trance gets. He bounces holding his sword, huming strange incantations. The colors are driping on his torso. And then he finally sits down to hear the long litany of questions. Saris rustle. He gives away pieces of his headdress, a flower, a leave... when the headdress is fully destroyed , the Theyham becomes a man again, exhausted.
Then I leave in the night.
A few days after this experience, Sam has arrived at Costa Malabari and we are calmly talking, sipping a fresh pineapple juice under the vans while the night is falling. Suddendly it seems we can hear some drums. Korian is not home... we go and venture in the maze like pathes. Black and peaceful palm-trees wave to us, shadows against the marine blue sky. All of a sudden one of them is rising, tremendous. It's wonderfuly sparkling: fireflies have settled in its branches it resembles a Christmas trees while some of its garlands very regularly dim when other light on. We stay a long time under the magical tree, fascinated like children and start to wal k again only because the drums are calling us.
When finally we find them the ceremony has already started, it's again the blessing of a house. We are offered chick-peas wrapped in newspaper and some kind of fried cake made of rice paste. The Mutapan is there, with his swollen stomack and his paper mask around the lips. He mumbling barely audible prayers and suddendly let go of a strong laught "oh oh oh!". This strange Santa Claus is only bells and reindeers and one can easely imagine that what devotees are asking is in fact nothing but the list of the presents they wish for Christmas... Sam is the first to decide - maybe reassured by this familiar vision - to go ask a question as well. I follow her. Sam has her wish translated: 'love". But the translator does not understand this word and the Mutapan answers that "god", is already there, everywhere around her, even in her head.
I too express my desire for love, in other words a man! but a child as well. You have to give a very small amount of money, no more than 5 roupies. I give my bill. The Mutapan takes my hand. He rocks a bit while wispering ancestral prayers. He keeps my hand tight in his hand. I know that stones and waves are listening, even the palm-trees, the fireflies... life. For a long time he says the words. The mask and the painted face of the Theyham are so strange... I am so far away from everything I know... and all of a sudden very moved to be here.
At last he tears of some petals from his headress and put them between my fingers. He ask that someone translate to me: " I prayed very hard. If a child comes you have to come back here". Promise is made.
I ask more details to my translator whose English is sadly very limited :"what about love? what did he say?". He said nothing about it because the man once again has not understood this word and therefore missed out on talking about it. And therefore he gets worried:"but... do you have a husband? - No, this is why I asked for lov... - ah but you need a man to have a baby!" He turns to Sam who is laughing and asks her, with more and more explicit gestures wheather I know how it goes between a man and a woman, ask her to tell me about it... I put an end to the conversation, embarrassed that he imagined me to be so ignorant, a bit frustrated to have had half on my request forgotten. Forgotten or unknown? Does love, forgotten twice tonight, exist in the country of arranged marriages? We leave half laughing and half perplexed.
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