Song of the Sacred Grove
I first heard her voice on a wet evening when the sky over Kuttanad folded into rain. The paddy fields looked like sheets of water stitched with green thread. I had come to the village to photograph the monsoon for a magazine, thinking of reflections and clouds, not of people. But the sound that rose from the snake grove by the banyan tree changed my plans. It was an old song carried by a small wind, a voice with the warmth of lamp light. A woman stood near the kolam , the sacred drawing made with powders of rice and leaf. Beside her sat a man with a pulluvaveena , its gourd body resting on his knee. The woman held a small frame drum and a stringed bow. She began with a call that felt both prayer and story. Later I learned her name. Meera. She was a Pulluvan singer who travelled with her uncle to sing for families that kept the old serpent worship alive. They drew the kolam on floor or earth. They sang to invite protection for the fields and the people. They sang to heal, and to th...
