Latest posts
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Who’s the real fool? Questions I can’t stop asking about Pottan Theyyam
Every account of Pottan Theyyam I’ve come across tells the same story: a man everyone underestimates ends up correcting one of the most respected philosophers in Indian history, and there’s no comeback. And every one of those accounts still calls him the fool. That’s stayed with me longer than the story itself has, so instead…
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When the Kavu Becomes a Kshetram: The Caste That Climbs Back Up the Steps
A kodimaram has gone up outside a kavu that didn’t have one ten years ago. It’s the tall ceremonial flagpole you’d expect outside a Brahminical temple, not a family shrine run by a Malayan or Vannan household. The puja is now conducted by a Namboothiri priest, in the spot where a hereditary local priest used…
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Bekal Fort: The Remarkable 17th-Century Fort Rising From Kerala’s Sea
Most forts sit on hills and look down at the land they were built to protect. Bekal Fort does something stranger. It walks out into the Arabian Sea. Nearly three-quarters of its outer wall is in contact with water. Stand on the beach at Pallikkare and the laterite ramparts seem to grow straight out of…
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Theyyam: When Gods Walk Among Men
It’s past midnight in a village somewhere in Kasaragod. The air smells of burning coconut oil and crushed turmeric. A drum starts — slow, almost hesitant — and then another joins it, and another, until the sound stops being something you hear and becomes something you feel in your chest. Then he steps out. Face…