“The banana grown in our dump yard is the offering to your God, / The basil flower grown in our dump yard is the garland of your God. / Still why do you argue over caste? / When you are wounded, isn’t it blood that gushes out? / When I am also wounded, isn’t it blood?”
Quoting these few lines from the thottam (myth) of Pottan, one of the most popular deities in theyyam, it is generally argued that the given myth and its performance largely represent a revolutionary spirit questioning the caste system. A close examination proves that it is a misreading. The narrative, on the contrary, seeks to suppress the revolutionary spirit and turns to maintain the caste system.
According to the thottam (narrative in verse) prevalent among the Pulayas (Scheduled Castes), Pottan was an untouchable. Clasping a baby at his waist and carrying on the head a toddy-filled earthen pot, he walks along on a narrow embankment. A Chovvar, representing a higher caste, comes closer to the Pulaya from the opposite direction. Due to distance pollution, the Chovvar turns furious and commands the Pulaya to move away from his path. The Pulaya, though in a mild tone, begins to question untouchability and inequality maintained by caste divisions. One after another, he raises numerous questions, as quoted above, with a scathing criticism of the existing reality.
The whole body of the given myth is infused with such questions that are not responded to by the Chovvar. The fact that the questions remain unanswered is the most significant aspect. It enfolds a message that those questions are so significant that they cannot be counter-questioned. It implies that the caste system and related inequality must be brought to question as long as they remain an oppressive force.
In this sense, the term pottan is much more meaningful. Pottan literally means deaf and dumb. Any gesture of the Pottan therefore could be nonsensical as it cannot be meaningfully perceived by others. The right sense of the term pottan is thus a fool. This idea is beautifully translated even in the visual form of the mask that Pottan Theyyam wears. Further, his performance is not very strictly pre-formed (a fool cannot strictly follow any form or norm). He is rather allowed in his performance to make use of any chance to make a fool of himself, or better say, his whole performance is a pottan kali (fool’s play). Since a fool’s gesture or utterance makes no sense, he is free to act or ask anything. In that sense, Pottan Theyyam is not in fact either deaf and dumb or fool, but he just pretends to be so, as it lends him freedom to express himself in whatever way he likes, without conforming to the social norm of behaviour. Any gesture or voice of the Pottan is therefore a pretext to express the pre-text formed in the collective mind of the oppressed.
However, the subversive value of the Pottan’s voice has been turned silent in the ideological narrative of high-strata Hinduism through the interpolation of a story that appears in the Sankara Digvijaya, a fifteenth or sixteenth-century work that seeks to establish the supremacy of the great Indian philosopher, Sri Shankaracharya. Pottan Theyyam is in fact conceived today as the one who figures in this story. Accordingly, Siva in the guise of Chandala or Pulaya appears in the way of Shankaracharya, who is on his way to ascend the sarvajna peetha, the seat of supreme knowledge. Being afraid of distance pollution, Shankaracharya commands the Chandala to get out of his sight. Chandala criticises the views of Shankaracharya with a swirl of counter-questions. Finally Shankaracharya realises that a Chandala, as intelligent as this, is usually not to be found, and so it could be nobody else other than Shiva himself in disguise. With this realisation, he prostrates before Chandala/ Shiva. At that very moment, Shiva appears there and blesses Shankaracharya for his extraordinary intelligence.
True, Shiva appears, but in that very moment the Chandala disappears. That is the ‘end’ of the whole matter, but in many respects, it is the beginning. Because, the ‘end’ is the destination; it is the fertile point from which the story draws its nourishment. The context where Shiva appears and blesses Shankara is not a mere conclusion in the story. The whole thottam is re-formed in order to include that very dramatic moment. It can be seen that from the very beginning, the narrative is oriented towards unfolding that specific context, and thereby the end forms the core of the text. It may be viewed, therefore, that the appearance of Shiva is virtually a disappearance of Chandala. And interestingly, Shiva blesses not the Chandala but Shankara who reflected the thought prevalent at that time. The disappearance of the Chandala therefore marks the disappearance of the whole ideas he represented. Shiva (as Chandala) and Shankara are by no means now the representations of the two opposed worldviews, but of the one and the same order of Shiva-Shankara.
Here again, the questions put forth by the Pottan (Chandala) remain unanswered, but the disappearance of the Chandala relegates the significance of the questions to such that they are too insignificant. In this sense, the questions do not have self-contained meaning—meaning evaporates and the words remain just like driftwood without having their own force of direction. Yet they are closely interlocked with the narrative structure to imply that caste system and related inequality are preordained, so that they cannot be either altered or questioned.
The ‘meaningful nonsense’ of the Pottan of the local myth is thus changed—while the former questions the caste system, the changed version makes such an illusion, but behind it, it in fact seeks to revitalise and legitimise caste.
Chandran T V
Art critic & author. Teaches art history at the College of Fine Arts, Thiruvananthapuram