Kalarigram: music, dance, and martial arts

When I returned from the morning visit to the Auroville paper factory, I stayed in the hostel for a while.

In the evening, I went to Kalarigram, an evening of prayer, music, dance, martial arts, and rituals.

The drumming music and dance was particularly good. I don’t know how they maintained their energy levels for well over an hour in the heat.

After the music in the temple area, we returned to the main arena where people danced.

The penultimate event was bizarre. The star of the show had a huge banner attached to his back. The banner was wobbly for a while. His helpers kept adjusting it until it was stable. Eventually, he danced.

The top of the banner was lit so he had to make sure nothing caught fire! Fortunately, he didn’t touch the overhead bunting, which staff had tried earlier to pull down. It remained stubbornly up.

After his dance, the star climbed two chairs stacked on top of each other then leapt off! I’m not sure what the purpose of this was apart from a piece of theatrics.

The final event was an impressive martial arts display. Several of the performances involved weapons and live choreographed fighting.

The most dangerous involved two men fighting each other with metal whips.

There was more to come but by midnight I’d been there for about six hours. I was wilting. It was past midnight.

To go back to the hostel, I called an Uber but it was taking a long time. In the meantime, these men started talking to me. After a lot of banter, one of them started asking people if they were going in my direction. Two people stopped and one of them said she could give me a lift. She was from Watford, England! At first, she was a bit wobbly on her motorbike because she wasn’t used to having a passenger. She soon found her rhythm and I was glad to be back. It was 1.30am.