Mysore Monkeys and Kabini Snakes
We continued our journey south and inland to Mysore, a Shiva/Parvatti town that reminded me a lot of Varanasi. There were temples and palaces and generally grand architecture everywhere, one of the most notable was the Parvatti Temple on top of a huge hill. We took a rickshaw to its base where we admired and I hand-fed (for the first time) the sage-like temple monkeys. We then began to climb the twelve-hundred brightly striped red and white steps, past the massive, thirty-foot tall bull Nandi, to reach the top of the mountain Parvatti Temple. Once inside we could see further inside chambers beyond inside chambers to an adorned altar at its core, difficult to see, but apparently very old and sacred. On our way down we passed about two-hundred pilgrims blessing their bus and journey onwards. They had fires in dishes and were circling their two buses chanting with one leading and two-hundred responding, creating an intense and powerful sound. We were amazed as their chanting continued to escalate as they formed a huge v-shaped arrow coming out from the front of the buses and we thought about our own bus and crazy roadway journeys and wondered that this might be a really good idea.
Our performance was in a community outside of Mysore that had been forced from their rural farming villages when the recent Kabini Dam was built and flooded 35 miles of the land upstream. The local NGO we were working with had just finished building a headquarters to field social and medical issues for this community and we were going to perform for their sunset inaugural blessing. On the way we stopped in one group of huts where, our contact told us, 'the poorest of the poor' lived. We were asked to do something improvised with the people staring at us and wondering who we were, so we clowned, juggled, played music and movement games with the kids and generally helped facilitate some joy and laughter for them.
Our show following the blessing went well, however we were all saddened at what happened afterwards. Our main character always plays a snake charming flute with the snake/hula-hooper and this time a brownsnake appeared coiled on stage at the end of our show. We thought that this would eventually happen and many in the group felt honored at its appearance, the snake being an ancient and sacred symbol of wisdom. We were curious and happy and excited - but before we knew it a person from the area had grabbed a large stick was beating it dead. The transition from amazement to shock was so abrupt - and I had to walk away in pain and disgust, dropping to the ground about to cry. We all felt disbelief but it was clearly not our place to stop, or judge as wrong, this behavior. While we could understand that this might be a normal reaction in this area to snakes it was horrible knowing that we had called this snake there only for it to be killed, and it was extremely difficult to witness what we held as sacred being destroyed.
The sage-monkey inquiring before I gave him any food.
The slightly less peaceful mind of the sage-monkey who wanted more food. I was feeling vulnerable at this moment and he understood when I kindly told, "Common, monkey, you got to let go of my pants. Seriously."
Playing games with the kids.
Our performance was in a community outside of Mysore that had been forced from their rural farming villages when the recent Kabini Dam was built and flooded 35 miles of the land upstream. The local NGO we were working with had just finished building a headquarters to field social and medical issues for this community and we were going to perform for their sunset inaugural blessing. On the way we stopped in one group of huts where, our contact told us, 'the poorest of the poor' lived. We were asked to do something improvised with the people staring at us and wondering who we were, so we clowned, juggled, played music and movement games with the kids and generally helped facilitate some joy and laughter for them.
Our show following the blessing went well, however we were all saddened at what happened afterwards. Our main character always plays a snake charming flute with the snake/hula-hooper and this time a brownsnake appeared coiled on stage at the end of our show. We thought that this would eventually happen and many in the group felt honored at its appearance, the snake being an ancient and sacred symbol of wisdom. We were curious and happy and excited - but before we knew it a person from the area had grabbed a large stick was beating it dead. The transition from amazement to shock was so abrupt - and I had to walk away in pain and disgust, dropping to the ground about to cry. We all felt disbelief but it was clearly not our place to stop, or judge as wrong, this behavior. While we could understand that this might be a normal reaction in this area to snakes it was horrible knowing that we had called this snake there only for it to be killed, and it was extremely difficult to witness what we held as sacred being destroyed.
The sage-monkey inquiring before I gave him any food.
The slightly less peaceful mind of the sage-monkey who wanted more food. I was feeling vulnerable at this moment and he understood when I kindly told, "Common, monkey, you got to let go of my pants. Seriously."
Playing games with the kids.
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