The Dutch silhouette of St Francis’ Church’s was glistening in the afternoon sun, as if it were onion fritters being fried in the purest coconut oil. I’m in my white collared shirt. There’s a dance mask embroidered on my chest pocket, along with the words “Kathakali Adventures Pvt Ltd”. I have an ID that reads as “Rahul Thomas, Proprietor”.
This is my favourite part of the tour.
“From the ceilings of this, the oldest European church in India”, I say with a practised flourish, “three colonial powers look down upon us, the Portuguese, Dutch and the British”.
I look around if there is any sign of recognition of my butchering of Napoleon’s famous quote when he visited the Pyramids for the first time. Or Goscinny and Uderzo’s reference to it in Asterix and Cleopatra.
There is none. Philistines.
I carry on unperturbed. “Records show that the Portuguese Viceroy was permitted in 1506 to build a “temple of worship” by the then Maharaja of Cochin. We also know for a fact that Vasco da Gama walked through these doors and later was interred in a tomb in these grounds in 1524, when he died here in Cochin.”
That rustled up some interest in the 8-member crowd. I survey them closely, mostly elderly couples, retirees, on their grand voyage around the world. The best kind of customers, I learnt through much experience. Helps to have a crowd too, instead of a single person, I think wryly to myself. Of course, it wasn’t always this way.
I probably should rewind the tape to a few months ago.
Namaskaaram! Myself, Chacko Rahul Thomas here. Friends calling me Chacko, but I not liking it. Chacku also meaning knife or sword, you see. You can call me Mr Rahul or Mr Thomas, or Mr Rahul Thomas. Please not be calling me CRT, I more like LCD….
Or maybe I should drop the fucking pretence and speak like I normally do. I am about to reach Nedumbaserry Airport in this Ambassador (car) I am being driven in. This is my first big gig, and I’m a bit nervous, so I was practising my introductions, just as Acchan(“dad” in Malayalam if you are wondering) suggested.
Acchan had been a surprising amount of help, to be honest. He didn’t blink once when I told him I wanted to quit my job in Wipro and start a travel company ferrying firangi tourists around the homeland. Not like Amma, who, for once, had a View: She didn’t approve of her only son going a few social levels down from a mighty IT Engineer to a mere travel agent. But not Acchan; he knows the value of earning in dollars. And besides, after 40 years as an English teacher, think he also feels it, that desire to get out of the rat race and do your own thing. Also, he probably likes having me around in our hometown Kochi, instead of big bad Bangalore.
The only trouble was, he’s rather fastidious about his suggestions. Wants me to speak to fucking firangs in a posh RP accent, if I’m Nisha Pillai on BBC World. Sure, Nisha Pillai is Malayali, but she spent her life in UK. Me, I only did Bhavan’s Girinagar and Cochin University of Science and Technology right here in Kalama-fucking-serry, which we just passed on the way to the airport. I very local saar. I speak like this only.
But I no abusing gerunds ah. That being strictly for humour purposes only. Or if I want to sound dehati (that’s a ‘country bumpkin’ for you phoren log) with NRIs or phoren people.
Car turning into international arrival hall’s pickup point now. Driver will park car. Best to be holding the sign up. What’s the guy’s name again? Anthony Bourdain? Mr YouTube writer. Whatever. Let me look up the email thread on my phone. As fate would have it, someone for once was interested in visiting some long forlorn template deep in Kollam district, and was asking for help on Indiamike’s forums. What better person to help a firang than the son of an English teacher who has years of experience fixing PC’s remotely for backoffice clients in London and New York? That’s me. For the low low price of…. well, two months of my old salary, I can take you, foreigner with a strange name, deep through my homeland to attend whatever festival you want to make YouTube videos of.
Of course, weeks later, after the actual Event at the Temple, and over endless cups of that spicy yogurt drink sambharam, you’d confide in me that you actually were just laid off from your job, that your girlfriend had just broken up with you, and that you were merely looking for a break, and try travel vlogs for a change… now I wasn’t to know any of that, then, was I? I wouldn’t have said yes to any of this had I known about it, would I? I should have also done my goddamned research about the damned festival and all that it entails, shouldn’t I? I was dumb and naive, wasn’t I?
Sigh. Too late for all that, I think looking at you now. Back then, I only knew it was a certain Mr Neil Stirling that I was to pick up and take him to the temple.
We are at the arrival hall now. They obviously don’t let us plebes go all in. Instead, they make us wait in a big, fenced location for “security” purposes, out in the sweltering heat.
What that means is, when arriving passengers start coming out, all your touts pounce on them at the same time. If you’re Indian, you’ll probably brush them off like they’re dirt off Jay-Z’s shoulder. Pardesis are bound to be scared. Can’t afford to lose this one. First deal is always auspicious. Besides, as my best friend Venu said, munnu dollar, appidi collar: first earn dollars, then buy a collar (collared shirt). Need them collared shirts to look dapper in my phots that my mom will distribute to her friends and matrimonial sites.
That’s why I scribbled the name quickly on my notepad when I saw the Dubai flight just landed.
Some strange tall Caucasian-looking man approached me hesitantly. You. At that point, I waited for him to say something. None. I looked around; all the other phoren looking people picked their rides up, the only ones still coming in were Indians.
“Mr…errr”, I looked at my board to get the name right. “Your customer’s name is Neel? That’s very Indian”, Amma commented last night when I told of my first ever client. “British people have extraordinary names”, my Acchan commented in Received Pronunciation as if he was Moses. “Did you know that there’s a poet called ee cummings? No capital letters in name only”
Yes, Acchan. ee cummings. Sixth grade English lit. “I see what you are saying, Acchan”, I tried to reply delicately, “but cummings is, ummm, American”. Acchan looked surprised and miffed at the same time. We left it at that.
“Mr…. Sirrling”, I said warmly, gathering my thoughts finally. “Welcome to India!”, I suddenly hear a voice next to me, “I, Gopalan. Best driver in Ernakulam. I take you around, come”.
It was Gopalan- chetta (“bro” in the local patois), grinning wide in his half open shirt, jumping at an opportunity for tips, and stealing my much-practised lines. I patted his back and beckoned him to cool it. “We are Kathakali Adventures Pvt Ltd. We are here to take you to the Chamayavilakku festival at the Kottankulangara Devi Temple in Chavara, Kollam district”.
See Acchan? That’s why I have a thick Indian accent. So I can pronounce all of this. Why don’t you get Nisha Pillai to say all of this? Or this Sirrling guy? Confidence back with saying all those Malayalam words, I beckoned Gopalan to pick your bags and get moving. “This way, Sir Ling”
Now every village has a temple, and every temple has an annual festival where they festoon the village in bright colours, bring out the elephants, the drums and the lights, paint themselves as tigers or something, dance for a bit, and be merry. There are regional variations to this theme, but the core construct is all the same.
Not so with the the Chamayavilakku festival in Chavara. This one isn’t too well-known even in Keral, but this is where men dress up as women and offer lights and candles to the goddess, in return for boons. Now, I’m not Hindu, and more to the point, not religious (well, certainly not religious then), so I didn’t bother about the details, but it’s a veritable Thing: men come from all over, they get dressed up in garish makeup and costumes, and for one night, pretend to be women offering flowers to the deity.
We were now in Gopalan’s car now. “Very fast saar. You don’t worry. 3 hours 51 minutes”
51 minutes? Gopalan too has gotten Google maps on his phone. I look at you and again at Gopalan. Go a bit faster than that, I tell him in Malayalam. “We, errr, have booked a room at Hotel Vijaya Palace in the town. Very close to temple. Do you have any camera equipment? You need someone to shoot? The first haarati is at, ummm, 715pm.” It was almost 2pm already. “Shots in sunlight will be very nice”, I say giving a chef’s salute. Haarati is the ceremonial oil lamp that the priest offers to the goddess, usually once or twice a day. It’s a beautiful sight, made better with the twilight in the background.
“Kerala is a very beautiful land”, I began finally using my Acchan’s lecturing genes. “Legend has it that it was established when Parasurama threw his axe and it fell…”, I started to drone on, only realising midway that you were already asleep.
Gopalan looked at me and smirked. I looked around. We were still at Alwaye and were stuck in traffic. We would be late.
Sighing, I called the makeup guy and asked him to be ready for an “express session”. Yes, I know it’ll cost more. No, just one. Not for me. Yes, for a firang. Yes, it’s a travel show. Sir Ling Sings or something. Yes, we will show his shop prominently for a few seconds in the cut. Yes, he’s 6 feet and something. Large size.
Now then, Gopalan was a horrid driver. He thinks a car has only two modes, accelerate and break hard. But that’s not why I hire him. We hire him for navigation. He has a gift for sussing out shortcuts not visible on Google maps itself. That’s why I was so surprised when he turned it on.
“Chetta”, I said with panic quietly rising in my voice, “never mind GPS, Do. Your. Thing”
He looked at me, grinning his pan-inflected teeth and nods. And then, he swerved hard right into the smallest gully you’ve ever seen.
It was all a big rush after that: cyclists, auto rickshaws, bikers, hen, cows, even the odd elephant. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many beings scuttle away so quickly noticing an approaching car. There were cusses flying freely outside, I’m sure. But what the detour meant was that we were suddenly coasting past paddy fields and backwaters and eventually onto a wide expressway well outside city limits.
I looked at the time. “We are coming on time”, I messaged the makeup guy, by which I meant our delay wasn’t two hours. “Big crowd at main road. Enter by back side pls”, he messaged back. Take the back-entrance, he meant.
No time for freshening up at the hotel then.
We “bypassed” all the major towns using the highway, as we say in Ind-glish. True to form, Gopalan worm-hole-ed us back into urban India through a reverse route involving more side alleys and stray dogs and defecating men, and reach the suggested “back side”, a rusty iron gate instead of the neon-lit main entrance with its teeming crowds and polished wooden doors.
There was a firang involved, so of course the owner Kurien, comes out running, and whispers the situation with urgency.
I tried to wake you up. “Mr Sterling”, I say in a hopefully polite tone, finally having re-read the email thread once again (what the fuck was Sir Ling? Am I blind?!), “we are at Chamayavilakku Kovil at… never mind, we are here. We… ummm, are running late. I am told that in view of the crowds, ummm, only attired devotees are allowed into the sanctum sanctorum”.
You were just waking up, and don’t react.
“You need to dress up as a woman to enter the temple, Sterling”, I said with urgency. “I mean, sir”, I added sheepishly. “Sorry”, in a lower voice, before recovering.
“This gentleman, Mr Kurien Jacob, will dress you up. Gopalan will wait here. You may attract a bigger crowd if you go to the entrance. Kurien, please”, I say authoritatively. Someone needs to get moving.
Kurien took you and me inside the air-conditioned shop. “Welcome to Evergreen Beauty Parlour”, he said in a booming voice, “we are experts for the Chamayavilakku festival held at the Kottankulangara temple. We have range of saris for you to choose from. Would you like a brown Kanchivaram, or a green Chinese silk? May be a Benares…”
“Kurien!” I egged him on.
“Oh an orange and green cotton plain then”, he said looking at me and you. “Excellent. May we take your measurements?” He got out a tape and starts measuring you, spending a bit of time on your chest and groin.
“Can you please change into these first”, he said offering a tight pantyhose and a green underskirt and showing you to the dressing room. “He has light coloured hair, so we don’t need to put on much make up. May be fine a lighter shade”, he continued with me in English. “Long hair or bob-cut?” He means long or short hair.
“Long I suppose”, I said indifferently. I have a bigger problem coming up. Mom. “Can u send your good picture, pls”, she just messaged me.
“Good” pic? That can only mean one thing.
“Why Amma?”, I message back.
“Mrs Sangeetha was asking”, she types.
“You know Mrs Jose has a daughter, no? She finished her BTech”.
Noooooo. No. No. No.
Not ready for arranged marriage just yet. Certainly not with Ms Mary John Jose of Kannur Lane, Ernakulam Junction. No, just no.
“I’ll find something”.
“Soon pls”, she replies.
So where were we? “Ah yes, long hair. Flowers in hair. Full package. We will pay”, I said brushing off Kurien, waiting for you to return.
It was 630PM. Getting very very close to sunset and the haarati shot. No haarati shot, an unhappy customer. Unhappy customer implies no dollars. No dollars, no collar. So to make sure he isn’t unhappy, I need to get the customer moving, even if he didn’t like it.
I then see you looking blankly at the petticoat (yeah, we are Victorian in our English usage) and pantyhose and shake my head.
“Ummm, Mr Sterling”, I say trying to calm down and hide my panic, “you want to take video of the evening prayers as the sun sets, yes? From inside the temple, yes?”
Deep breath.
“So, they are not allowing visitors in because of the crowds.” Pause. Let it sink in.
“But there’s a way”, I say looking at Kurien.
“They are still allowing devotees in through the special haarati lane.” Everything in India is ticketed, even access to gods.
“You know this festival is for men dressing in women’s clothes and praying to the goddess, yes?” Pause. Enunciate clearly.
“If you go in as a devotee, and give special offerings to the deity”, I hold up a plate of flowers, mud lamps and a coconut, “they’ll let you in. And you can also shoot video from inside.”
Pause again.
I moved in for the kill, I can taste it.
“There are videos of the festival from outside on YouTube. But never from inside. A devotee’s point of view. Wow, how amazing would it be”. I say with some sincerity. Am quite tired of Kerala Tourism’s crappy ads.
“Anyway, you think about it. Just let Kurien do your make up and you will be able to enter the temple holding this plate of offerings. If not, all you can get is shots of people queuing up and being snarly”.
I look at what you’re holding as well. “You… may need help with that too. Kurien, do we really need pantyhose for a sari? Can’t sir just wear those special panties that help you, uhhh, tuck in? Just enough to get into the special haarati lane, please”, I said shaking my head.
“Yes, of course”, said Kurien, picking the pantyhose and offering you frilly underwear which had various pockets I wasn’t about to investigate.
Making it easy for you, I think. I was waiting for your response when my phone buzzed with messages.
It doesn’t take long for you to respond. “That will be good, Mr Thomas”, you finally say hesistantly. It was only later that I realized you weren’t talking much until then. But then, in our frenzy, we didn’t give you much chance to say anything, did we.
No, it wasn’t you agreeing to my plan that made my chest puff up. I expected that, in a way. It was when you called me Mr. Thomas. Yes, that’s right, brothers and sisters, it’s Mr Thomas, Owner and Proprietor of Kathakali Adventures Pvt Ltd. Not Chacku The IT Guy anymore.
I was brimming with pride and adjusted my collar. Well, golf tee’s collar. Still need some of those sweet dollars before I can step into a Raymond’s showroom and buy myself a collared shirt. Heck, with the money flowing in, I may even skip mere Indian brands like Raymond’s. Might even go higher. Might even buy from Marks and Spencer at that new international mall in Edapally. How about that, eh! Amma, your son is climbing up.
But there was the simple matter of sorting out the piece of cloth in front of you. Taking it from you, I fidgeted with it a bit, and was still befuddled. “Errr, Kurien, koracha help please”, I asked in a mixture of Malayalam and English. And then, fully in Malayalam, “I don’t know what this is about”.
Kurien’s grin became even wider, if such a thing was possible. “You don’t worry saars, Kurien telling you how to wear”, he said snatching the underpants. “Indian wear have three parts: inner wear, medium wear, outer wear”.
Hmmm. No, they don’t actually, there’s only inner wear and outer wear. Undergarments are a modern convenience, meant to augment what’s already there. Or obscure them, as is the case here. I let it pass.
“Ey, Panicker… come here. Show saar how to wear this. Full set ah, time is running out. Up to blouse and petticoat.”, he called out in Malayalam. Panicker is a Laurel to Kurien’s Hardy: thin, clean shaven and young, unlike the potbellied moustachioed Kurien. He also clearly spoke no English.
“Don’t worry saar, Panicker will dress you. Please be complying with him, thank you very much”, Kurien said still smiling.
Panicker bundled you into the dressing room. I had half a mind to intervene, but decide against it, lest I delay the proceedings further. Besides, I had other things to worry.
My phone has buzzing incessantly all along. It can be only one person. I had been trying to ignore thus far, but I can’t do it anymore.
It was Amma.
The torrent started off innocently enough first. Well? 🙂 was the first message.
Hello dear, Im still waiting! was the next.
Chacko, are you getting these?
Where are you?!
Chacko, answer me now!
I caught the last one in time. The next would have been a call.
I quickly reply back. In Kollam. On a job. Later please.
Just one photo? comes the swift reply.
I can’t take it anymore. I take a selfie with a silly face. There are men in various stages of make-up and dress-up in saris in the background, which I notice only after I sent the pic.
CHACKO, ARE YOU AT THE CHAVARA FESTIVAL?! IS THIS YOUR FOREIGN JOB?!
Gulp.
Yes, Amma. I reply meekly.
It was only a few moments before I receive a reply.
My god. Jesus. My son is with the eunuchs. I can almost see her wipe sweat off her forehead. She typed eunuchs in English, but she meant m9;am51;l93;an, which is a bit more derogatory in Malayalam.
I’m fuming. My one chance at doing my own thing, and my own mother finds a way to layer bigotry in.
Isaiah 56:3-5, I type back, finally putting my Sunday classes to good use. It’ll first please Amma; she’ll think her only son was actually religious, despite claiming to be agnostic (which I am… or was) Then she’ll take time to look up the verse, won’t find it in (my community’s) Syriac Bible, will be annoyed to find in the English Standard Version Bible, and then will even be enraged on reading it. But that’ll take time, while I attend a… Hindu festival.
Genius.
All depends on how you were faring though.
Unknown to me, Panicker meanwhile decided being mute was his best course of action. So he gently, but wordlessly, shoved you into the dressing room and started to take your shirt off.
He then grunts an “Excuse”, and taps his watch. Its getting late. He taps at your pant belt. You need to remove this. He waits for a moment and actually unbuckles it.
You are in your underpants in all glory. He stares at your groin and again at the panties, and sighs.
Shaking his head, he blurts out a quick, “Sorry. Excuse”, strips your underpants, pulls up the panty, slots your organ in to one of the pockets, holds the string down to wrap it under your groin, then pulls up the petticoat and ties it below your belly button.
“Elastic”, he says holding a bra, and strapping them on you in one swift motion. There are two small bags of rice in them in a tear-drop shape. “Koracha adjusting”, he says in broken English, ensuring the rice bags are on your chest, like real breasts. Low tech.
“Like shirt”, he then says holding the blouse, pulling your arms to the back and pulling the blouse up. It’s a snug fit on your arms, with a wide, U shaped gap on the shoulders. Wider than most men’s shirts. Panicker stuffs the rice-bag breasts into the pockets meant for them, and starts putting the hooks into the sockets.
It’s unlike what you’ve ever seen. The arms are tight, the shoulder wide, the breasts tight, and the overall height smaller than any shirt you’ve ever worn, barely coming up below your rib cage. All of that above a strange piece of underwear that have tied your manhood in knots.
But before you have a chance to react, Panicker has moved on to the next: he’s held out a green skirt, asking you to step in, and when you do, he pulls it up and ties the string close to your belly button. And then pushes you outside, where Kurien and I had been standing.
I had been busy messaging before realising you’re in front of a mirror. For one, it’s masterful how two tight pieces of cloth have fashioned a mid-riff out of you. For another, there’s still 6 feet of masculinity out there. It’s actually a bit comical, but I try not to laugh.
Kurien interrupted the silence with his usual “good, good”, and then interspersing with “Next stage, ready?”
I decided I need to speak to my first and only client. “Mr Sterling, hope you are feeling okay! We will proceed with the rest if you are fine.”
Before I even realised, Kurien’s other staff start draping an orange cloth around you in various ways putting it up with safety pins and were even preparing a makeup set.
I should have paid attention. Hours later, in our panic, we would have an easier time figuring out how to unwrap all that tapestry. You didn’t know it then, but after all, this was the last you saw your manhood.
“Yoo mean, Vasco da Gama is buried here?”, an elderly gentleman asks, in what was unmistakably a Dutch accent.
“He died here Mr…”, I subtly check my notes - another trick I learnt from you - “… Eidenhoven, and initially buried here, but his remains were transferred to Lisbon in 1539, where they remain now. But if you would like to see his tomb, this way”, I say, leading the group through shrubs to Portuguese stone inscriptions from 16th century. The Archeological Survey of India marked a square in the middle, where Vasco da Gama’s remains used to be.
“St Francis Xavier’s body lay here in Dec 1553, when it was brought from Malacca. The remains were then moved to Goa, where you can see them every 10 years in a religious ceremony.”
“Do you have tours for that one?”, asked Mrs (I’m checking my notes again) Rutherford, of Warwick, UK. “No ma’am, my adventures are limited to Kerala alone”, I say with a smile, proud of my little wordplay.
There’s more to this, isn’t there.
“You better not have tours during religious ceremonies”, you said sternly when I first suggested starting a walking tour in Fort Kochi. I’ve begun doing that lately, to check in with you; despite everything, helps to have a reality-check on my grandiose ideas with a western mind. Or rather, a mind that was brought up in western surroundings. Yours. You know how these people think. I don’t.
Your suggestions were helpful: have a logo, have a “brand”, focus on one niche that’s hard to be dislodged from instead of doing everything, practise my walking-tour script with you…. it was fantastic. The likes were ticking up on YouTube and Instagram to your posts.
“Are you listening? No. Religious. Ceremonies”, you say again, looking into my eyes.
Something in the kajal (mascara) in your eyes told me something else. “That’s a joke isn’t it? You’re doing that British self-deprecating stiff upper lip humour thing”, I replied with a laugh.
There’s finally a hint of a smile in your, well, now thick, cute, lipstick-laden lips that I have kissed so many times. “You are learning, young Padawan, you are learning”, you said while swinging your braid to the front, and whacking me playfully with your hair.
Funny how you learnt these feminine mannerisms this quickly.
Nope. It wasn’t this way when it all started.
“Kurien here is very professional, Mr Sterling”, I hear myself say in a different universe not too long ago, “he has already prepared a wig for your benefit. See it’s pre-braided!”, I announced then with manufactured excitement as him and his staff began to carefully place the wig on your head.
“Must be heavy, no?” I am trying to make you feel excited and smile. An unhappy customer will ruin it all. You were shaking your head, with me unsure whether you were disagreeing with me, or if you were feeling the weight.
Kurien and gang thought you were doing an Indian head-waggle. Saar likes it!, announced an excited Panicker, looking at me. Saar, we will make you very pretty, don’t you worry!, he continued.
I wasn’t sure if he was being swept in the moment or taunting. Either ways, I glared at him, suddenly feeling very conscious of a confused firang being left… vulnerable on India’s terrible streets. I don’t think the protective feeling ever subsided since then.
I bring myself back to attention now. “No ma’am, we don’t conduct tours to the Basilica de Bom Jesus. But if you would like to visit the Feast of St Francis Xavier, may I suggest at the end of the year? I can put you in touch with partner tour operators” Mrs Rutherford seems satisfied with that answer.
Another thing I learnt from you. Learning to answer the question when needed. Doesn’t come easily to us South Indians. Didn’t come easily to me then.
You were then decked up in a sari and a wig with black hair, something that didn’t gel with the colour on your eyes. They didn’t have makeup that fit your pale white skin, and instead, put some shade that was khaki-like. It was like doing Kabuki, but with a 6 foot firang and face in a light brown shade that only extended to the neck, but not the shoulders. Your arms were pale white. “Saar does not have hair” , Panicker declared, strobing your hand. Kurien nodded, not seeing the thick strand of golden hair in the fast setting sun.
I glared at Panicker for his transgression.
Thanks to some well-placed pins, the skirt had creases fanned out like a lotus leaf alright, but the rest of your sari was drooping around you like a blanket that wanted to be a snake, but didn’t have the cajones to pull it off.
You see, a sari’s delicate beauty is mostly in its pallu , on how artfully a woman drapes the top portion around her hour-glassed bosom. Every inch matters. A few creases, a few folds of the sari on the chest can mean the difference between conservative housewife, a sensual girlfriend, a sexy seductress or an erotic vamp. In still Victorian, highly stratified India, the differences could be profound, or tragic. Indian women learn this the hard way all their lives, and have ways with dealing with transgressions should they happen.
Or it could all go down the drain and could make you look like a bag of aloos (potatoes), as they would say in the North, or in London’s Ealing Broadway. You seemed then, a frog completely out of its racial and gender depths.
We should have stopped then. Not for the obviously failed, hurried attempt at crossdressing, but because you were fast attracting a crowd. Chavara isn’t like the other crossdressing festivals - not like the Ganga Jatara in Tirupati or the Aravan festival at Villupuram - those who come here are not gawkers or Chasers. Tradition still held forth, as did devotion to the goddess Bhagwathy, so it wasn’t as if the crowd was ugly or anything. It was probably plain curiosity, at seeing a paradesi (foreigner) try out one of the town’s revered traditions.
Traditions. Goddess Bhagwathy.
That’s another thing you taught me to do, do actual research before a walking tour. I didn’t know better back then, and just wanted to hustle you in. I had no idea back then; I was just this Syrian Christian kid who wanted to earn. I thrust a plate in your hands with mud lamps, oils and flowers for the goddess, and with your camera artfully placed on a corner.
“This will give you great angles”, I said impressed by your camera, “and look, your camera can take shots automatically every minute or so!” I was drooling in with not just gadget thirst, but wanting to complete it all quickly. So much so that I was lost in my thoughts even when you asked what was going on.
Kurien gently tapped on my shoulder. You repeated the question again, with a calm hiding your panic: Mr Thomas, why does everyone pray here?
If I did this now, I’d have taken you to the temple in the morning of the festival, when it is sparsely populated, and with no crossdressing devotees. I’d have begun in my Read Along voice:
Centuries ago, before modernity found Parusarama’s Bow that is the land of Kerala, this area used to have a magical pond called Bhoothakulam. One day, a few cowherds wanting to remove a coconut’s husk, struck the coconut on a stone. But when they looked at the stone, they were alarmed: for it was dripping not coconut juice, but blood.
Astrologers and pandits were brought in, who quickly surmised that a temple should be constructed to house the stone, for it was magical, divine even.
Afraid of offending Divinity, which, being the primordial force that pervades through every being and object, they quickly built a temporary structure made of leaves and branches, a tradition that you will notice when you step inside continues to this day.
Alas, the bleeding did not stop. It was as if the Stone was still angry. The pandits did not know what to do and were looking up the agama shastras, the astrologers looked to the skies. Only the cowherds did what everyone should have: they prayed.
And thus, Divinity spoke through one of the more strapping lads, one who was going to be married the next month on the tenth day after new moon. “Pray to me, honour me”, he spoke suddenly in a booming female voice, “for I am Aadi Para Sakthi”, with fire lighting in front of him spontaneously.
At which point, everyone there - the pandits, the traders, the cowherds, astrologers, even the Chavara Raja himself- bowed and cowered in fear. Finally, the pandit, a friend of the possessed cowherd spoke hesitantly: “But if you are Aadi Para Sakthi Herself, why are you so scary? What sins have we performed for you to show this Ugra Roopam (angry form)? O Divine Mother, as Lord Krishna once did with Arjuna on the battlefield at Kurukshetra, please pacify thineself. How can we welcome you in a human form?”
At which the cowherd’s then fiery eyes looked at annoyance at the pandit, and said: has any muttaiduva (chaste housewife) or damsel welcomed me with tilakam (vermilion) or offerings?
That was that. Since then, in the month of Mesha, men dressed themselves up as women, and welcomed the goddess into their lives by offering vermilion, lamps, preparations from coconuts, oils, just as any devout woman would at any other temple.
This is what I would have said. But I didn’t. Because I didn’t know better. Instead, I bundled you into the front of the procession before more crowds discovered you.
You were hassled, pushed, gawked at. Some tried to take pictures with you. I stayed back; I wasn’t, ummm, dressed, besides I was an outsider myself, content at viewing the proceedings from the sidelines. They asked you for your ID at the entrance in Malayalam; you didn’t understand, so they called me over.
I nodded at their request, looked at the copy of your passport you had sent me on email, and carefully wrote down your name, for the first and the last time in the original spelling: Stirling, Neil (Mr)
I shake myself again back to the present. Dusk is setting in, with the sun making brilliant patterns in the nearby sea. My tour group is scattered around the church and cemetery.
I point to the initials on the crest painted on one of the walls: VOC, Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, an insignia from a time when the Dutch East India Company took over Fort Kochi from the Portuguese. Mr Eindhoven is particularly excited and was listening intently on my tales from the Dutch Era.
I am interrupted by a WhatsApp message from you. Beef fry for dinner, you write, May be finished if you’re late!
I shake my head smiling and look at the time. It was getting late. “We need to leave before they start the evening services”, I call out to the tour group, and gesture Gopalan to prepare the SUV.
I didn’t get a message while you were going inside the temple, but a call. Amma. “Very clever, Chacko. You are teaching Bible to your own mother!”
“Not now, Amma, a bit busy now.”
“No, you listen. Where are you? Why did you send me that verse reference?”
“Did you look it up? In the English Standard Version Bible?”
“My. Dear. Monne”, she began sarcastically, “all Bibles are the same. What did you mean to say?”
The crowd was surging. Look there’s a paradesi here, someone shouted. I was petrified.
“It says”, I began hesitantly, “Let no foreigner who is bound to the Lord say, “The Lord will surely exclude me from his people.””
A guard was re-checking everyone’s admit cards, including yours.
“And let no eunuch complain, “I am only a dry tree.””
At 6ft 3 in, your visage was unmistakable. You were heads above everyone else, at the procession’s head.
“For this is what the Lord says: “To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose what pleases me and hold fast to my covenant—"
There’s a sudden shriek and a murmur ricocheting through the crowd like a seismic wave.
“To them I will give within my temple and its walls: a memorial and a name, better than sons and daughters;”
“The paradesi has fainted!”, someone shouted from the front, raising more gasps.
I don’t know what got over me. I hung up, and leaped over the railings, aiming to find a spot to further jump over people if I could. It felt like slow motion, like a Wong Kar Wai flick with trusty south Indian dappu beats. The person next to you turned towards me and gestured at a body clad in a green and orange sari lying on the ground. You.
I found myself next to your lying body in no time. You are lying face down, motionless. I could hear nothing else. No noise, no spotlights, no murmurs from the crowds, no traffic noises. Nothing.
“She wants to know”, the person next to you began in a booming female voice, almost like that of Mrs Kuriakose, my Chemistry teacher from secondary school. I was shaking your head. The wig seemed softer now, less prickly even. And it seemed stuck to your head.
“She has seeked help”, he continued. I was trying to find a pulse, and realised your arms were softer, smoother and thinner than before.
“Bhagavathy helps gopikas who seek Bhagavathy”, he continued. I was a bit surprised at the word, “gopika”, for it meant “female cowherd”. I found the pulse. But I also found bangles on your hand. Many bangles. Many many bangles. When did we put bangles on your hand?
“You know the answers.”
I noticed your tan was browner. Your shoulders seemed smaller, your body seemed lighter. I flipped you around gently. And gasped.
“But did you know that you did?”
Your face had become rounder, softer, gentler. There’s mascara ( ”kaajal” ) around your eyes, the right makeup on your cheeks, traditional earrings on your ears.
“You will help her answer her questions”
There’s a mangal-sutra (a golden necklace) on your neck, and red sindoor on your forehead. Adornments (as my father would say) worn by married women.
“Diirgha sumangali bhava”, he finally said in that booming female voice.
That’s how you bless married people in Sanskrit. I looked up, half surprised, some to admonish him. But he’s gone.
There was no mistaking it. There’s a married Indian lady in front of me, suitably attired in traditional clothes and jewellery. You. You had also grown shorter.
I tapped you gently on your chest, which was clearly heavier and softer, and nice to touch. Beetroot red, I shook you by your midriff, which was dainty and small, with no sign of the previous male potbelly.
“Mr Neil Stirling?”, I called you out for the last time using your former name, shaking you ever so much. Your face has become oval, and… dare I say it, very beautiful.
“Use your wife’s flowers”, said a lady next to me. I looked up confused. The sun was back up by a bit. There is none of the festival crowds now. They were setting up the barricades and queue ribbons in anticipation of the crowds.
I looked at the time on my phone: 545PM We are back by an hour.
There’s a message from Amma: I want to meet her, different from do you want to meet her that I remember her sending.
The elderly lady shook her head. Muttering: men, she dabbed jasmine flowers strung on your long braid on your nose. Your nose began to twitch. Unbelievably cute, I begin to think.
Gopalan bundles the tour group into his swank new Toyota Qualis, and nods. “Thank you for being an engaging crowd!”, I say into the open door. “We will visit the elephant sanctuary tomorrow. For now, I have someone waiting for me at home”, I say with a smile.
Im at my own motorbike and zip through Fort Kochi’s bylanes like an old hand in no time. I reach our house and open the door, to see you emerge from the kitchen.
You are wearing a yellow sari with thick earrings, mangal sutra and kumkum on your forehead.
“On time for once”, you say once again smiling with your eyes, but keeping a stern face. “It’s the beef fry you see, not you”, I say smiling, and pinching your cheeks.
“Liar!”, you say, taking a packet from my hand. “If you hurried for the beef fry, then what’s this?”, you say holding a string of jasmine flowers, this time not resisting a smile.
“You know very well how we Indians pray to the goddesses in our midst”, I say hugging you from the back, and putting the jasmine on. You roll your eyes, but are smiling, snuggling close to me. The smell is intoxicating, erotic even.
“I know it’s been only a few hours, but I missed this ugly face”, you say huskily, drawing lines on my face.
I can’t help but squeeze your lithe body and kiss you on your lips and neck. “Maybe you want to sit in my lap, and we feed each other”, I suggest hopefully. There are goosebumps on your small, smooth shoulders now. I don’t want to let go of you.
“Oh by the way, the report from the hospital has finally come”, I say to your excitement, opening an envelope from a maternity clinic, addressed to:
Mrs Neelima Sthiralingam, w/o Mr Rahul Thomas, House # 12, Girinagar, Kochi.
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