Honouring Pepita

Year was 1970, a young woman from a far away land, set foot on India, inspired by her soldier great grandfather’s diary of 1857. She was then working in the film field and had worked with many renowned directors. That was her first visit to the blessed land of “Bharat”. Then again in 1972 she returned to India, but this time to “Kerala”, the god’s own country. That was the beginning of a hard core relationship between a state and an angel, who fell in love with the culture of Kerala. She is Smt. Pepita Seth, born and brought up in England. In honour of her contributions to the state of Kerala, she was awarded with “Padma Shri”. She never had a proper educational background, as she put it “In my family education was only for boys not for girls”. She devoured books at young age.

Smt Pepita Seth with her book" Heavens on earth"

By 2000, she forever left her home-land for the love of India and Kerala’s art forms, but till 2000 her life was kind of in-between India and England . With her previous experience with cameras, (in 1994) she roamed Malabar area of Kerala taking photos of “Theyyams” (an art form of deity worship, which is renowned for its intensity). Those times she was living with different families, that too free of charge. She herself told in an interview how those wonderful people treated her as a member of the family. Her success lies where her ability to blend in. She never tried to see things from a foreigner’s perspective, when she took photos of “Theyyams” she tried to wear their perspective of the art, how they feel at the time of performance, how the transformation from ordinary to divinity occurs and how the people around conceive it. She was always one of them. She knew that this art form holds a special place in the peoples’ heart, unlike others she never considered it simply as an entertainment. Her photographs opened Kerala’s own universe of rituals to the outside world.

In 1981 she received official permission to enter all temples in the state. Smt. Pepita, a humble and down to earth lady, who is also a fervent devotee of Guruvayoorappan(Lord Sri Krishna, as he is the guardian of Guruvayoor (a place in kerala)), is currently involved in portraying the ritualistic and mythical beauty of famous “Guruvayoorappan temple” and publish it as a book. Her photographs of legendry tusker, “Guruvayoor Kesavan” (temple elephant) made her famous and more acceptable among common people. One can see those photographs before entering the Nalambalam of Guruvayoor temple. She shared a special connection with Guruvayoor Kesavan. She is honoured with this year’s Padmashri award for literature and Education. She is also the author of famous Heaven on Earth: the Universe of Kerala's Guruvayoor temple, which she humbly dedicated to Guruvayoorappan . She is now a resident of Thrissur (Kerala). Very soon her snaps of Guruvayoor Kesavan are going to be on postal stamp as a proof that she now a part of India and in honour of her undeniable services to the society.

del.icio.us Tags: Pepita seth,Padma sri,Guruvayoor,Guruvayoor Kesavan

The bloodsucking Yakshi

When I was a kid, April and May fell in the list of my favourite months. Not because it's going to rain and there would be mud all around, but those are the months my cousins would be here at our family house, in our hometown in Kerala. Those are the memories I would cherish forever. My grand-mother has 5 offsprings, 4 boys and a girl. My father is the second eldest of five. Then, he was the only one staying in Kerala and everyone else was in different parts of India, a Pan-India Family one could say. We were all present, it's like Parliament, shouting, laughing, scolding children, people everywhere, busy doing their chores. An outsider entering the home can still go unnoticed. Life was less complicated then. We were just ........just ourselves. Everyone you valued dearly is with you. It's like, the world has shrunken to a square block of bricks and mortar. Now it's all feel like a fairy-tale, one of the best things about joint-family. We are all tired of day's

THE EPIC - where to draw the line?

India is the land where history and myth get intertwined in such a way that you cannot say which is which. One of India's gift to the world of literature is her majestic epical wonder " Mahabharata ", attributed to some one(might be one person or many) called Vyasa or Vyas ( Ved Vyas ) which literally means one who dissected 'Veda' (religious and philosophical writings of Hindu religion). Research on this great epic revealed that many appendage had been done to the original text , before it became whole. Mahabharata's impact on Indian psyche is so profound that people consumed every word of it as such. Characters were being worshipped as role models, like modern day Bollywood stars. As the generations passed by, line which divides the story and reality started blurring. Stories told and retold, appended stories that were not present at the beginning happened, kind of regional versions. Many dynasties and empires came and gone everyone tried to leave t

Goeldi-chironomous

From time immemorial we humans have been thinking that the earth is a place which God built to teach us some manners. No religious texts seemed to mention another animals specifically and importantly as we. Everything was about us. We were the center of universe. Well this study puts one more bullet hole in that theory, because scientists found out that there could be more than 1 trillion species housing this planet. And we're just one among them. Oooh that sucks! Yes that's right, you've heard me, scientists have proof for that now. This profound work is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). It's such an amazing and groundbreaking effort by the scientific community,trying to map the biological diversity. The number of living beings shot up because this time extensive mapping of microbial life has been done. Usually people ignore the microbial diversity because they are invisible to the naked eye. The volume itself makes people's eyes pop out in amazeme

I Speak my mind

Search This Blog