Palghat or Palakkad, Ernakulam or Kochi or Cochin, Thrissur or Trichur, Alampuzha or Allepee…well, a kerala trip can start with some confusion till the time you actually figure out that almost every city there has two names. Palghat is probably the name that Europeans gave to Palakkad. Thrissur and Trichur sound similar. Ernakulam and Kochi are like twin cities and Alampuzha and Allepee are the same as each other. It helped when I spoke to a friend who lives in Kerala.
The show of ‘Raj Rakta’ we were told is in a village about 30 kms from the center of the Palghat district in a place called ‘Kattampazhipuram’. Now pronounce it …does it sound similar to ‘Kadambaripuram’ but that is what it is, the correct pronounciation of the earlier spelling of the name. So while in the long journey through Tamil Nadu on Trivandrum express from Mumbai the locals who were travelling with us kept telling us that there is no place called ‘Kattampazhipuram’ in Palghat, we kept arguing and telling them that there is …we have a show there. Only towards the end of the journey we had a telephonic conversation with the organizers to clarify the mystery.
After about 38 hours in the train we did manage to land at the Palghat railway station. We were taken straight to the ‘village’- Kattampazhipuram or kadambaripuram. An interesting theater project - A community theater center called ‘Natyashastram’ is taking shape here- the idea is to create theater from within the community. Haven’t seen any of their work but the show was a part of the festival organized by them. The troupe was taken to two rooms which were their rehearsal rooms with mats on the floor. We were told that this is where we are going to stay. One room for the girls and the other one is for the men. I have faced similar situations before while travelling with ‘Naya Theater’ so I was quite resigned to my fate. I was pleasantly surprised when I heard soon after that there were rooms elsewhere for the couples in the troupe. Was quite surprised to find the luxury of finding a room in a decent enough facility in the so called village. In the morning I figured that the village had ATM, internet café, there was a functioning government dispensary and the houses were mostly concrete unlike the huts in the Hindi belt villages. This was hardly a village as I knew it, but then it takes some time for a North Indian like me to understand the God’s Own Country.
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