Ralph Abraham: India, February 8 -- 23, 2014

A week in Kerala

The IIM is among the leading graduate schools (MBA) of economics and management of India, similar to the Sloane School of Management of MIT, which was the base of Jay W. Forrester, founder of System Dynamics. The IIM has five sites. This one, the IIM of Kozhikode, or IIMK, is a new campus, built over tha past 10 years on a hilltop overlooking the small village of Kunnamangalam. This is about 10 miles east of Calicut (Kozhikode), the second largest city (pop. 3 million) of Kerala. Hence, I was headed for a guest house on the campus of the IIMK.

What I discovered is that the culture of Kerala is vastly different from that of Kolkata, which I like so much. But, the IIMK is a sort of island of Kolkata/Bengali/Tagore culture in an ancient Dravidian sea. In fact, the motto of the IIMK, Globalizing Indian Thought, is roughly equiavalent to the Visva Bharat of Tagore. This island, the IIMK, including its architecture, program, and even its motto, is all due to the vision of its director, Professor Debashis Chatterjee, a Bengali. As cultured, urbane, and vegetarian as is Kolkata and West Bengal, Kerala (and especially the Calicut area, I gathered) is wild and wooly, brash, loud, and meat-eating.

The campus is new, brilliantly designed, crafted, and maintained. As long as I stayed on the IIMK island I was basically fine, but also seriously confined. My room in the guest house was excellent. However, it soon became evident that it was directly overlooking a Hindu temple devoted to strange and very loud rituals.

The devotional drumming was fascinating at first. As a percussionist myself, I was amazed at the skill of the temple drummers. However, as it continued nonstop through the days and nights, it became rather like the infamous Chinese water drop torture. I was, in fact, unable to hold any thought in my head. I lived in a mental vacuum. No need to learn the ancient arts of meditation here, the distractions of life were essentially drummed right out of you, like it or not.

The crowning experience was a fireworks display (acccompanying a fire walking ritual, I came to understand) in which the bombs would rise from the temple up to the level of my bedroom window, then explode with the force of dynamite a few feet from my pillow. Thanks to my iPhone I was able to record a short bit of this for posterity. The bombs bursting in air would go on through the night until 5 am, then resume after a rest of about 30 minutes.

When finally I could take no more, I complained to my hosts and was moved to another guest house far from the temple, where everything was fine. The only concern that remained was the lack of vegetables, perhaps a result of the largely Muslim culture of Kerala.

In any case, my presentations went well, the audience was excellent, and I was able to experience one of the most memorable performances of classical Indian music and dance ever, which more than made up for everything. These were by Vishwa Mohun Bhatt on the Mohun Veena (Hawaiian slide quitar modified for Indian classical music by himself) and by Sujata Mohapatra, distinguished performer of Odissi, the oldest surviving dance form of India.

This wonderful artistic performance far from the usual centers for the arts of the North was a production of an organization called SPIC MACAY, The Society for the Promotion of Indian Classical Music And Culture Amongst Youth. This group -- devoted to to the sustaining the classical arts of India, especially among the young -- happened to be having their annual meeting on the IIMK campus.

I was very happy to be contributing to the IIMK program, and look forward to returning, if things line up for that. Midday on Sunday, I left the IIMK for the airport, and my 42 hour torture chamber to get home.