LIKE A GOD Pepita Seth offers a wide range of perspectives and photographs about the world of Theyyam
magazine
Sunday, March 10, 2024
Inside Malabar, rich in history, tropical jungles, old tharavads and modern homes, there are these little clearings dotted with temples. Often, a human dallies here with divinity and manifests a spiritual art called Theyyam. Those used to tourism brochures from Kerala are aware in a general sense of this ancient devotional endeavour.
However, for those living in this land of ballads and ‘kalaripayattu’, the traditional martial art, Theyyam serves as an unrestrained belief in having a holy communion with the gods from the Hindu pantheon. This is all about colour, often bright reds and yellow, firetorches made with palm leaves, the music of ‘chenda’, Kerala’s unique drums, and the synergy between the devotee and the man, who plays god. Holding a believer’s hand, the Theyyam artiste listens to woes and requests, watches tears flow, and offers hope and blessings. This is catharsis and comfort, and for those who have seen a Theyyam, it offers a perspective on Hinduism’s diverse strands.
Into this complex world, Pepita Seth wades in with a sense of wonder, extreme patience and a scholar’s hunger for knowledge. The result is a stunning coffee table book, In God’s Mirror, The Theyyams of Malabar. Coffee table books at times get dismissed as gloss, offering relief to the eyes and nothing more, but Seth begs to differ. Irrespective of whether you consider Theyyam as just an art form or an intensely spiritual pursuit, this book needs to be savoured.
Whispers of mystery
British writer Seth, who set out from London in 1970, in a bid to mine her memories of an ancestor, who once lived in India, was also inexorably drawn towards Kerala. Her trips gradually moved northwards and then she discovered Malabar. The vast ocean of literature does have many stunning lines and we all have our favourites — it could be a passage about the monsoon from Allan Sealy’s The Everest Hotel or any other excerpt that readers of this review may remember fondly. To that list please add these lines by Seth: “Malabar is a beautiful word, slipping off the tongue like a sighing whisper, murmuring of mystery and shadows, suggesting somewhere unknown and unreachable.”
Armed with a camera, notebook and an insatiable desire to understand Theyyam in all its
Illustrations portraying Rajen Mehra (below) and College Street in Kolkata with book kiosks and shops.
Booksellers and publishers function at the intersection of art and commerce, a place rich with possibilities. Like any other business, you have to keep your eye on the bottomline. But the most successful and enduring publishers are those who complexities, Seth throws light on this ancient form of worship. William Dalrymple’s Nine Lives, published in 2009, was perhaps the first to offer a glimpse into Theyyams in mainstream writing. His chapter, ‘The Dancer of Kannur’, is essential reading for those who want a quick grasp of Theyyam. What Seth does across 336 pages is to offer a
Ynever lose sight of the bigger picture — that the product is a work of art and cannot, therefore, be understood (and marketed) in terms of economic concepts widely applicable elsewhere. The art of business takes a backseat to the ‘business of art’.
Rajen Mehra’s memoir, Never Out of Print, offers readers a ringside view of the making of one of the breathtaking range of perspectives and photographs about the world of Theyyam.
The book can be read from end to end or it can be treated like an encyclopaedia on Theyyam. Want to know who Chamundi or Gulikan is? Or curious about Bhagavathi or Kuttichathan? They are basically manifestations of the country’s longestrunning publishing houses. And for the most part, it does so with a light touch and, especially in the second half, with the help of charming personal anecdotes.
The story begins with Mehra’s granduncle Daudayal Mehra impressing K. Jackson Marshall, a Scottish book sales representative, with his aggressive but scrupulously polite way of selling hosiery in Calcutta’s New Market area. Marshall asked the young man if he would be interested in selling Englishlanguage books.
“But D. Mehra knew his limitations. He had dropped out of school because the family had been unable to pay for his education. He was a dhotikurtaclad hosiery seller who didn’t speak English. Despite his restless energy and determination to experiment, Marshall’s offer seemed like something that would be too much for him to pull off. His market — the bhadralok (gentlefolk) and babus of Calcutta, newly Westernised and
Englishspeaking — tended to look down on other Indians, especially those who weren’t fluent in English.”
The paradoxes
This passage, intended as a way of communicating some of the paradoxes involved in selling Englishlanguage books in India, tells us how in India, reading and selling English literature is inextricably linked with class, caste and privilegerelated issues. The acts of reading and writing are aspirational, yes, but that aspiration isn’t in a single, easytodigest mode — the UPSC aspirant in Delhi is motivated to read and write in English for very different reasons than, say, a young TV journalist in Noida. Both individuals, however, are keenly aware of how speaking/writing good English is perceived in the country, and that perception is everything.
D. Mehra’s journey, meanwhile, takes the
Never Out of Print: The Rupa Story Rajen Mehra
Rupa
₹500
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In God’s Mirror: The Theyyams of Malabar
◣ company to its first big success and soon, the family consolidates the business by signing on a slew of big names — and securing the rights to publish/translate some internationally renowned authors as well. What’s interesting in this section is the way we see oldschool publishers going the extra mile to establish a personal relationship with authors. A far cry, indeed, from contemporary marketing gobbledygook and “outreach programs” built solely around transitory, sandcastlelike social media strategies.
Ray and other anecdotes
The company’s entrepreneurial trajectory is covered in the first half of the book; the second half (200odd pages) is filled with celebrity anecdotes, the kind of thing you’d be happy to read on the last page of a Sunday features publication. It’s entertaining stuff, mostly, like the story of Satyajit Ray casually drawing a whole book cover over a cup of coffee and a few puffs of his signature cheroot. Or the story of how smuggled copies of The Satanic Verses found their way into a car boot. Some of the more impactful and consequential anecdotes, however, take place in the chapter about the author’s own trip to Pakistan. It’s a business trip and the Rupa team meets famous writers and some of their biggest clients (booksellers) in Pakistan. Interesting encounters abound, but the one I found most noteworthy was with Iqbal Hussain of Paramount Books, one of Rupa’s booksellerclients. Very kindly, Hussain asks his guests what they wanted to eat and upon hearing, “daalroti” invites them to his house for lunch. There,
Iqbal’s wife has prepared a sumptuous vegetarian meal for them — but she refuses to come out of her room and greet them. As the author realises soon, this has something to do with the fact that this is early 1993, and just a few weeks ago, something horrible had happened to India’s Muslims.
“His daughter had just served lunch, and mustering great courage, I asked Iqbal bhai why his wife hadn’t joined us for lunch. ‘Babri Masjid’, whispered Iqbal bhai in my ears. The controversial mosque had just been demolished in Ayodhya, much to the hurt and anger of Muslims, Iqbal bhai’s wife being one of them. She welcomed us with her warm, homecooked food but her heart had gone cold.”
Personally, I would have shaved about a hundred pages off this book at the editing table. After a while, all celebrity encounters begin to read alike — like a cocktail of performative humility and practised selfdeprecation.
But Never Out of Print is a fast and engaging read nevertheless, plus a valuable record of publishing history in India. If you’re associated with the industry in any way, you should definitely read this. And even if you aren’t you’ll find plenty to keep you happy here.
Read an excerpt online.
The writer and journalist is working on his first book of nonfiction.