Feb 6 – Cochin/Kochi, India. Another new port for us. Here's the 411.
Kochi, known as Cochin on the ship, is a major port city on the west coast of India by the Arabian Sea in the state of Kerala. The city of Kochi has 601,574 residents and is the most densely populated city in the state. Heralded as the Queen of the Arabian Sea, Kochi was an important spice trading center on the west coast of India from the 14th century. Occupied by the Portuguese in 1503, Kochi was the first of the European colonies in India. It remained the main seat of Portuguese India until 1530, when the capitl was moved to Goa. Goa was chosen because it was more easily defended. You might remember the three forts we visited when we were there. Kochi was later occupied by the Dutch and the British, with the Kingdom of Cochin later becoming a princely state. St. Francis CSI Church built in 1503, is the oldest European church in India.
Kochi was the center of Indian spice trade for many centuries, and was known to the Greeks, Romans and Chinese since ancient times. The earliest documented references to Kochi occur in books written by Chinese voyager Ma Huan during his visit to Kochi in the 15th century as part of Admiral Zheng He's treasure fleet.
Portuguese navigator, Pedro Álvares Cabral founded the first European settlement in India at Kochi in 1500. From 1503 to 1663, Fort Kochi (then Fort Emmanuel) was ruled by Portugal. This Portuguese period was a harrowing time for the Saint Thomas Christians and the Jews, as the Inquisition was active in Portuguese India. St. Francis Church in Kochi was home to the grave of Vasco da Gama, the first European explorer to set sail for India. His remains were returned to Portugal in 1539. The Portuguese rule was followed by that of the Dutch. The Dutch, fearing an outbreak of war on the United Provinces, signed the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814. Under that agreement the United Kingdom received Kochi in exchange for the island of Bangka. In 1947, when India gained independence from the British colonial rule, Cochin was the first princely state to join the Indian Union willingly.
Availability of electricity, fresh water, a long coastline, backwaters, good banking facilities, the presence of a major port, container trans-shipment terminal, harbor terminal and an international air terminal among the assets that accelerated the industrial growth in the city and its adjoining district.
Kochi has a diverse, multicultural, and secular community consisting of Malayalis, Konkanis, Gujaratis, Bengalis, Marathis, Punjabis, Tamilians, Biharis and a few families of Jews among other denominations, all living in peaceful co-existence. Appropriate to its multi-ethnic composition, Kochi celebrates traditional Kerala festivals like Onam and Vishu along with North Indian Hindu festivals like Holi with great fervor. Christian and Islamic festivals like Christmas, Easter, Eid ul-Fitr and Milad-e-sheriff are also celebrated.
The residents of Kochi are known as Kochiites. Kochiites generally eat a Keralite cuisine, generally characterized by an abundance of coconut and spices. Other South Indian cuisines, as well as Chinese and North Indian cuisines are popular. Fast food is also very prominent. Because it's a tourist hotspot, Fort Kochi has a number of restaurants that offer international cuisine, like Italian, French and Mexican. Being close to the ocean and the backwaters, Kochi has a variety of great seafood. A restaurant known as 'You Buy, We Cook' is located on the waterfront of Fort Kochi. You purchase your fish directly from the fishermen and they cook it for you.
Kochiites are known for their enthusiasm in sports, especially football (read as soccer) and cricket. One sign I saw on a bridge that appeared to be for a football team called them "God's Own Team". I'd say that's enthusiastic, if not a bit overreaching.
Now to the present. Usually Diana and I prefer the longer tours because you see more of the place you are visiting but for some reason 7 months ago when I was booking tours on-line we decided to take a short afternoon tour to see a cultural performance. Must have been Divine intervention because, for some reason, the officials in Kochi decided to have a face-to-face inspection. Normally if they want to do that the officials get on at the port before theirs and do the inspection while the ship is moving. These officials waited for the ship to dock and then they came aboard to set up to see everyone.
There are over 1,200 passengers on the ship and almost 600 crew. The line started in the Explorer's Lounge went all the way forward to the main atrium, wrapped around that and went all the way back to the dining room. It was chaos. People on ship's tours received the first call, but those with private arrangements and people who just wanted to get off joined the line. Technically D and I have tickets to a ship's tour so we wandered up to get cleared. When we saw the line we decided to go to the Exploration's Café, get a latte for me and a mocha for D and sit in the library looking out at the port. When they announced that anyone could now go get cleared we went back up and there was almost no one in line. Like I said, everyone went at the first call. We cleared in no time and went back to the room.
At a little after 1pm we met with the rest of our group just off the gangway on the pier. When everyone was there we moved to our small bus. I really like it when my tour does not have to be in a giant bus. The small busses make everything so much easier. Turns out that we couldn't leave right away because our guide was leading a morning tour and they were so late leaving because people couldn't get cleared that she wasn't back yet. She arrived in just about 5 minutes; I thought she'd be much later. She must have been on one of the shorter morning tours. (Some of the longer tours got back to the ship at 6pm, two hours late and an hour after we were supposed to sail
Our ride from Port Kochi on Wellington Island (an artificial island formed when in the 1800s a British engineer dredged Kochi's harbor and used the dredged up soil to form it) to Fort Kochi took about 45 minutes through not really heavy but chaotic traffic. The street our destination is on is not negotiable by our bus so we had to walk about 300 yards to get there.
The Greenix Theatre at Fort Kochi keeps Kerala's best-known art form, Kathakali, alive. Kathakali is a unique blend of dance, drama, music, literature and painting. Elaborate makeup, ostentatious and colorful costumes and intricate gestures give this art form a unique appearance. Performers reenact stories from the Mahabharata and Ramayana. The elaborate makeup or aharyam is of three distinct types—divine, demonic and worldly. Characters in this dance drama are identified by four different costume elements. Green is worn by the gods and heroes; red is worn by the villains, tadi, or beards, are worn by characters displaying superhuman qualities and minukku, or 'prettying up' is usually used by female characters. Gestures are a major component in portraying a character as are eye movments and facial expressions. Musicians follow the performers as they gesture and enact the characters. The instruments used are folk-based, such as drums, gongs and cymbals. The sounds provide the background music known as thiranottam.
To do the entirety of either story would take days. We are going to see a scene where the good prince kills an evil demon. When we first entered the small, 3-row theater one of the actors was laying on the stage having his makeup applied. His face was mostly green with a yellow forehead which has a red bow tie shape in the middle. the strangest thing was white gill-like appendages that went from his chin to top of his ears on both sides. An assistant was meticulously gluing them on as we watched. I later learned that this was a tadi or beard and the fact that it is white signifies that he's one of the good guys as does the primarily green face.
After watching the makeup demonstration we headed across the hall to the Kathakali museum. Here they have life sized mannequins dressed as the characters in the play. There are interpretive signs and pictures of past and present stars of the art form. Our next stop was in the dressing room. The costumes are elaborate and designed to make the actors look bigger than life. Most of them are heavy, weighing up to 60 pounds. The actors are all male regardless of the part they play. Like ancient Greece there are no women actors in Kathakali.
The actor playing the woman was wrapping layer after layer of padding to go under his dress. The actor with the green face we had seen getting made up was donning a large headdress and layer after layer of shirts, jackets and padding for his skirt. Then it was back to the theater for the play.
First the actor playing the woman came out and was seated on a chair. He gave us a demonstration of various eye movements and facial expressions that portray different emotions. Amazingly or maybe not so amazingly, most of the expressions looked just like the facial expressions we use every day. The only difference is here they are exaggerated. He then gave us a demonstration of the gestures used to signify various words. In that regard it's a lot like hula. As he performed the eye movements and gestures the instruments played the sounds that go with them. There are two drums, one is held horizontally and played with metallic thimble-like devices worn on three fingers, the other is held vertically and played with drumsticks. A third man played a pair of small cymbals and was also the singer.
For performances of Kathakali they always light an oil lamp stage center at the front. When the actors enter the stage for the first time they go to the lamp and make slight lifting motions to receive the light so they'll have a good performance.
The woman character came in first. She's here to ask a favor of the prince. Both characters move in stylized ways and their eyes are definitely always moving. At first the woman pleads for her favor and eventually begins using her feminine wiles on the prince. At first this seems to be working but then he realizes that she's trying to trick him into an unfavorable position. To emphasize his rejection of her proposal he picks up a sword that was lying by his chair.
When the woman realizes that the rejection of her request is final her true nature comes out and she attacks the prince trying to bite him with her newly sprouted fangs. They struggle but the good prince is too strong for the demon and stabs her with his sword whereupon she dies.
It was fun to watch the performance, not a word is spoken by the actors but I'm sure that the singing by the cymbal player is like a narration or Greek chorus giving those who understand it the scoop on what's happening. The actors will occasionally make a sound, but no language. Part of the fun was watching the eye and hand movements while looking at the facial expressions. Most of the time you knew exactly what was happening. On the prince you could see, in this order, patient listening, considering, tempted, realization, disgust and finally rejection of the woman's request. On the woman you could see in order, supplication, pleading, coquettishness and finally rage.
It reminded me of Japanese Noh and Kabuki combined. After the performance was over the actors stayed on stage to allow people to come up and pose with them for pictures. D love that stuff so up she went.
All that was left to do was walk back to the bus for the ride back to the port.
Our entertainment for the evening was the Cast of the Rotterdam in a show called 'a la Mode'. It was a musical tour of Europe and the singers and dancers are very good. The only clinker was the inclusion of 'Danny Boy'. We've heard other artists sing that song several time on this cruise. I've been hearing that song since 1951 when Dennis O'day, an old fashioned Irish Tenor back when there were hundreds of them in show biz, sang it on TV. He was a regular on one of the variety shows that filled the airwaves in the '50s. The singer did a great job with it but it's just overdone to the max and I'm tired of it. On the bright side, we've been on the ship almost a month and I've only had to suffer through one Andrew Lloyd Weber tune. That's certainly a change for the better.
No comments:
Post a Comment