The ‘Magazine’ cover story (Page 8, March 3), “‘Where have my groves gone?’,” laments the disappearance of groves (Kavu in Kerala), which indirectly signifies disappearing human values and man’s alarming disconnect with nature. Every folk art when sincerely presented or performed is a ‘return to nature’ experience and Theyyam is no exception. The entire man-nature relationship is one of eternal confluence, convergence and conflicts, and eventually it is nature that prevails.
One wonders why in the modern age, we are grossly unconcerned about the ill-effects of self-made disasters when there are ample lessons in myths and folk tales to avoid such situations.
M.V. Radhakrishnan,
Thrissur, Kerala