Masculinity and Marriage: Interrogating Possession among Velichappad Men of Northern Kerala

Introduction

In the study of spirit possession, there is a need to understand the everyday social and material life of the possessed person, which can elucidate the gendered dimensions of possession. This paper is an attempt at departing from the usual approaches of examination and simplification of the obscurities contained in spirit possession to refocus on the everyday gendered life, through the experiential prism of the men who get possessed. Focusing on men’s experiences gives in-depth insights into the studies on the gendered dimensions of possession, which has otherwise, majorly been focused on the experiences of women. This paper also analyses how possession is at the conjuncture of imagination of marriage and masculinity. That apart, it examines the class and caste structures that limit and transform the individual, and at the same time offers differentiated experiences.

The paper draws mainly from the ethnographic studies on Velichappads of Northern Kerala. ¹ Velichappads, according to the Malayalam Sabdataravali (dictionary), is the one who does thullal (which means dancing/jumping up and down/hopping around) and offers oracles when possessed or in the presence of a deity (Nair 1984, 1083). ² The ritual performance Velichappad Thullal, thus, essentially means the “dance of the deity.” It is believed that a Velichappad shares certain elements of the divine when possessed and shows a divine path to the believing mortals (Caldwell 1999; see also Kurup 1977; Namboodiri 1989; Payyanad 1998). The emphasis of the given paper is on understanding the everyday imprints of possession and the multitude of ways in which it alters the individual’s social, economic, and cultural landscapes.

The main subject matter of this inquiry is Velichappads whose belief system is associated and intertwined with the Kodungallur Bharani festival. The Kodungallur Bharani is a month-long festival that falls in the Malayalam months of Kumbham-Meenam (March-April) at the Kodungallur Kurumba Kavu, ³ also known as the Kodungallur Bhagavathi Temple, situated in the central Kerala district of Thrissur. The practice is historically located in the non-Brahminic traditions of rituals and worship sites (Adarsh 2013; see also Menon 1967). ⁴ The salient feature of the Kodungallur Meena Bharani festival is the presence of a large number of Velichappads who are decked up in the red, wielding pallival (ritual swords), with anklets and aramanis (belts with bells), accompanied by those singing earthy songs, most of them sexually-loaded expletives, dancing and circling the temple and its surroundings in a trance during the festive days. The festival climaxes in a ceremony known as Kavu Theendal, wherein hundreds of devotees circumambulate the sprawling temple in an utter reverie. Following this, the Kavu is closed for a week.

After the week’s long festivities, these Velichappads return to the hard realities of their everyday lives. The festival site is both the entry point for this study as well as the access to Velichappads. This paper is an outcome of the continued engagement with twenty Velichappads from diverse social and economic backgrounds over a period of 3 years. The Velichappads mainly belonged to Palakkad, Kozhikode, and Wayanad districts of north Kerala. This researcher has made multiple visits to the homes of these Velichappads, wherein their families also became essential participants in the process. The Velichappads often invited the researcher to many of their meetings and journeys, which further helped in understanding them in the real context of their everyday lives. In addition to the Kodungallur Bharani, participation at the local shrines and kavus of these Velichappads were also important research inquiry sites. Even though the information was gathered from various sources, observing the Velichappads and interviewing them, were the primary sources of data. ⁵ During the course of data collection, the researcher made sure that the interviews were as interactive as possible so that the process through which knowledge was produced was as non-hierarchical as possible (Anil 2018). ⁶ While analysing the data, not only these in-depth interviews were treated as social products, but also consciously underlined the socio-material processes that generated them. In many parts of the narrations, this researcher resorted to first-person accounts, trying to stay as close as possible to translation. ⁷ The sequencing or order of the narrations is based on the themes to which Velichappads furnished the meanings which are presented through contextual presentations.

Velichappads: Beyond the Symbolisms

A generic definition of possession fails to capture the specificities of the individual possession, its differences, the depth of the experiences of the possessed, and how it affects the everyday life of the possessed. Neither can the vastness of the experiences be captured in a single word, particularly while studying possession in certain regions (Ram 2013). To comprehend the effects of this ritual enactment on the gendered everyday lives of Velichappads, first of all, it was important to know the particularities of the ritual possession being discussed. This was because the meanings and implications of the Bharani festival and the presence of the hundreds of Velichappads at the festival site have changed historically. Velichappads at the Kodungallur Bharani worship and identify with many variations of the mother goddesses, and each of them holds individual significance. Identification of Velichappads with each form of the mother goddess also implies a specific symbolic meaning. It is seen to have effects on how they understand and perceive the experience of possession, particularly for male Velichappads. This section draws upon some of the key existing understandings of possession of Velichappads and sees how it offers a starting point to understand their everyday experiences.

Induchudan (1969) notes that the site of the Kodungallur Bharani represents the political and religious journey of this coastal small town in central Kerala, which is connected by the fact that there are two stories of Kannaki and Kali as the goddesses of the Kodungallur temple. The legend goes that the Chera king built the temple in his capital Vanchi, which is the present-day Kodungallur, in honour of Kannaki, the main protagonist of Elango Adikal’s Tamil classic epic Silappathikaram. ⁸ The epic is focused on the life of Kannaki and Kovalan, two ordinary people from the merchant class, and their journey through love, deception, anger, and redemption. Parthasarathy (2004), who translated the Silapathikaram into English, sees it as an epic tradition that subverts the andro-centric bias of the epics and displaces the semi-divine warrior and the heroic ethos that surrounds him with a mortal woman who is eventually transformed into a divine.

Velichappads are also considered part of the blood sacrifice associated with the Kannaki cult (Induchudan 1969). In Kerala, the tradition of Kannaki was merged with the popular cult of Bhagavathi (Kurup 1977b). Velichappads most commonly use the name of goddess Bhagavathi, primarily the Kurumba Bhagavathi deity, to denote their possession. Bhagavathi is rarely depicted in mythology or iconography as the consort of a male deity but stands independently (Caldwell 1999). Kurup (1977b) notes that chaste women’s worship must have developed as a cult and later merged with the Bhagavathi cult in Kerala, including the Sreekurumba, in Kodungallur. In southern Kerala, she was elevated to the status of Bhadrakali and in the northern part of the present-day state, as Sreekurumba (Kurup 1977b). Thus, the worship is of a chaste woman who is also a ferocious goddess, and therefore, Velichappads are possessed by female goddess/es.

Several practices surrounding the Kodungallur Bharani festivities hold direct connotations to the sexuality of the goddess. The recitation of the songs (Bharanipattu) loaded with sexual innuendos during the Kodungallur Bharani festival is viewed as propitiating the mother earth or the rain gods, rain being a necessity for crops (Induchudan 1969). In agricultural societies, rituals based on fertility, wherein the mother earth is conceived as a female deity and therefore assumes a cult role, has played a very significant role in the development of religious rituals as well as other social practices. This belief has led to the concept of the menstruating goddess in different parts of India (Bhattacharyya 2009). The literal meaning of Kavu Theendal, the event that marks the culmination of the Bharani festival, is often disputed and has implications on how the event is perceived. Theendal originates from the Malayalam word Theenduka, meaning to touch, pollute, or be affected. Kavu Theendal is commonly understood as a ritual practice that pollutes the Kavu. As Kuttikkad (2015) notes, there is an argument that the event was known as Kavu Pookkal (blossoming the Kavu) before the advent of Brahminism and closing of the Kavu after the Kavu Theendal festival for 7 days was part of the menstrual cycle of the mother earth. In everyday spoken Malayalam, Theendal also denotes menstruation. Caldwell (1999, 171) sees slitting the forehead of male Velichappads as a symbolic act of self-castration, emphasizing the Bhagavathi’s erotic and killing thirst. The movement of Velichappads when possessed is seen as the form in which the Bhagavathi reveals herself and denotes the power of female sexuality. These aspects can help understand deeper the experiences of male Velichappads, possessed by a female deity during the festivities.

The interlocking of femininity of the possessed deity and the masculinity of male Velichappads is seen to impact the everyday gender experiences of male Velichappads. The inherited hierarchies and the power structures of the gender are further confounded and unsettled by the presence of the divine body in the Velichappad. Janice Boddy (1994), in her paper “Spirit Possession, Revisited: Beyond Instrumentality,” notes that the phenomena we bundle as possession are part of the daily experience of the possessed, not just dramatic rituals. They have everything to do with “one’s relationship to the world, with the self-hood--personal, ethnic, political, and moral identities of the possessed” (Boddy 1994, 414). Boddy proposes further studies on possession to better understand this phenomenon as about morality, kinship, ethnicity, history, and social memory, which she considers as the touchstones of social existence. The narratives presented in the paper provide deeper insights into the daily experiences that cover several aspects of their lives. These narratives reveal the tension around the conjugality of Velichappad men. Issues around conjugality hold true for Velichappad women as well. But the entry of divinity of female deity in possession makes the questions sharper within men.

Towards Families, Desires of Marriage

Velichappads returning from the festivities to their families, wherein they became partly non-conforming divine selves, begin to negotiate with the norms and obligations of the everyday family lives. Following here is the meaning that dialectical organicism sees a diverse and complex social whole as constitutive of every part, and every part as reciprocally constitutive of every other (McNally 2017). The narratives discussed here traverse through several dialectics of the material and the social, the spiritual and the divine, real and the imagined. The journeys of Velichappads towards conjugal relations open new vistas in the study of both gender and masculinity. Studies on male sexuality and religiosity have mostly concentrated on celibacy and abstinence, which is unquestionably attributed to as an upper-caste ideal (John & Nair 1998). Conjugal desires, and also the challenges thereof, bring to the forefront the relevance of understanding the sexual economies ⁹ of the region with possession as an entry point. Further, it contextualises the issues in the histories of gender, class, and caste.

Babu Velichappad, in his 40s, is a post-graduate, also doubling up as a farmer, hails from the Palakkad district of central Kerala. Babu belongs to an Ezhava caste ¹⁰ and became a Velichappad by “inheriting the goddess” from his grandaunt. In the social embedding of the stories and myths, there is also the understanding of inheritance for a Velichappad. It is believed that for the goddess to stay on in the family, another family member must become a Velichappad after the death of the existing Velichappad. Inheritance also happens when a Velichappad becomes too old to perform the key ritual of thullal. The family of Babu attributes much of their upward economic and social mobility despite being ex-untouchables to what they are today to Sarasu Velichappad, who was the grandaunt of Babu. ¹¹ Sarasu, who never got married, was one of the most popular Velichappads of her time. She built a shrine nearby their ancestral home, which became a centre of worship for many devotees. The labouring body of Velichappad moves, throbs, jumps up and down in reverie, providing a divine experience to the devotees who are also the participants in the process. Giving oracles is also an essential aspect of being a Velichappad, which also involves giving answers to the problems devotees face. For all these, Velichappads are often presented with gifts, both in cash and kind. Sarasu, with her respectability and popularity, and the resultant higher income, made upward socio-economic mobility possible for her family.

Sarasu, when ailing, wanted to hand over her possession of the goddess to a family member and the responsibility of continuing the family tradition of having a Velichappad in each generation fell on Babu, who the family says claims to have started showing signs of possession even before the passing away of Sarasu. Babu, who was hoping for a good job after his post-graduation, became a Velichappad soon after her death. Babu recalls, “My marriage was supposed to happen 12 years earlier. However, my grandaunt asked me from her death bed, to concentrate on becoming a Velichappad. That is how I took charge.” ¹² Babu insists that his marriage got delayed as he became a Velichappad. “My siblings are well-settled; one is working abroad, and the other is in government service. Their partners are also equally established in their professions,” Babu mentions. Despite the possibility of an alternative future for him like his elder brothers, Babu became a Velichappad.

Years after becoming a Velichappad, Babu struggled to find a wife who was educated but would still accept him as a Velichappad. He searched too long for a bride, and finally, what came as his vantage points were his family’s reputation and the well-to-do financial status. “My years of searching for a suitable bride ended just 4 years ago. I was very sure that I would marry a girl from a low-income family and sought nothing from her, except accepting me as a Velichappad,” says Babu. But he is quick to admit the difficulties other Velichappads face in getting a life partner and is vocal about it as well. “When we seek alliances, the marriage brokers insist that we tell the girl’s family that we are just temple priests and should not mention that we are Velichappads. But I was very sure I would never lie to a girl to marry her. Today, every girl looks for a guy with a government job or someone who has a better social standing. It hurts me to admit that I haven’t gone anywhere with my wife yet. The only place I have taken her is to the nearby pilgrimage site. My wife looks after the temple activities. Yes, the lives of Velichappad are difficult. Not many talks about it though or for that matter want to admit it,” he sighs.

Babu’s words speak volumes about the tension experienced by Velichappads in getting accepted by their wives and in-laws. He, however, also suggests that the wives of Velichappads also have to make a lot of compromises. A Velichappad does not get the social acceptance and respect that a temple priest enjoys, who is mostly a brahmin. K Radhakrishna Swamy, the co-founder of an umbrella body for Velichappads, says they formed the organisation to help these men and women “earn rights and respect” that are being enjoyed by temple priests. ¹³ Velichappads do not garner enough respectability as temple priests, who in most cases belong to a brahmin caste.

Babu Velichappad accepts the conflicting lives that Velichappads lead, and there is a clear lack of understanding both among their partners, and family members as also the society, of the intricacies of leading a life of a Velichappad. As a result, he has started to look for marriage alliances for his fellow Velichappads. A higher reputation that Babu’s family enjoys because of having four generations of Velichappads in the family and the resultant exceptionally higher socioeconomic status enabled Babu to find a bride of his choice. The family here becomes the normative social relation that enables a continuation of inherited practices. Babu’s insistence on marrying from a low-income family shows how he could negotiate the structures that were impediments to attaining his desires.

Today, several Velichappads look up to Babu and one of them is Hari, hailing from the northern Kozhikode district, a place where one cannot find as many Velichappad as one can spot in Palakkad. The ancestral shrine of Hari Velichappad always had the presence of Velichappads. Growing up closer to the shrine, he got influenced by the rituals and decided to follow suit and became a Velichappad when he was 24. Five years later, he tied the nuptial knot when he was 29. Like Babu, Hari too says that he did not hide about being a Velichappad to his would-be or her family. Despite that, after the marriage, he had to face lots of challenges. “In the Palakkad region, one becomes a Velichappad on Tuesdays, Fridays, and Sundays. But in Kozhikode, one becomes a Velichappad only during the festivals. I used to become possessed only for the Kodungallur Bharani. My wife told me that she would come for the Bharani only after she was mentally prepared to see me possessed. Even though I had shared everything with her before the marriage, she was not expecting to see me slit my forehead with a sword when I am possessed. This is despite the fact that my wife’s family also had a Velichappad in their family, but they never did what we do. She did once accompany me though, but then decided not to make a second attempt,” Hari recalls. ¹⁴ His wife had some elements of both surprise and shock when she realised what kind of a Velichappad he is. Hari says that now he makes it a point not to be a Velichappad who devote their lives to it. “Never have I felt that I should sit as a Velichappad alone. I can never take it along with my work. Since in Kozhikode we don’t know the discipline Velichappads should have, it is difficult. Whenever anyone calls me for any event, such as giving oracles, I direct them to another known Velichappad. I cannot have a regimented life like many other Velichappads. Some of them have not even attended a wedding in several years. Earlier, I had great company with all my friends. After becoming a Velichappad, all that vanished or paled into insignificance,” says Hari.

Hari Velichappad is sure that he cannot be a full-time Velichappad, and he is an electrician for all other practical purposes, socially and financially. Many Velichappads become possessed only during festivities, and all other times lead ordinary lives with regular work. For them, being a Velichappad happens only a few times a year, sometimes only once during the Kodungallur Bharani. For them, being a Velichappad or engaging in the Velichappad Thullal does not significantly contribute financially. The desire for a non-conflicting life is also a reason for Hari to mellow down his part-self of being a Velichappad. Also, he truly believes that as a young man, being a full-time Velichappad is not feasible and he goes to the extent of admitting that he has discouraged many young unmarried people, and especially young women, from becoming Velichappads.

Hari’s narrative shows how Velichappads, according to their settings, articulate their experiences of divinity on one hand and their everyday life with their families in different ways on the other. The divine state of being possessed provides them with some status change, mostly symbolic, but sometimes resulting in a sustained upward socioeconomic mobility. The symbolic status change comes with certain impediments as well. To assimilate into society, families become the social relationship that helps them conform. There are different means through which it is done, as noticed from the experiences of various Velichappads. Sometimes, the limits to the possession self-exercised by Velichappads helps them blend in society in general and into marriage in particular.

The 34-years-old Mahesh Velichappad lives in the Kuthanoor village of Palakkad, a place well known for birthing many Velichappads. Mahesh belongs to a low-income Ezhava family and became a Velichappad when he was just 22 upon the death of his father. He used to be a goldsmith before and still does it part-time and is also a driver for private vehicles on call. Mahesh’s father was a Velichappad. After his father’s death, there were frequent deaths in the family, which the family believed was because of the wrath of the goddess for not having anointed a Velichappad from the family to replace the vacuum created by his father’s death. Mahesh believes that once there is a Velichappad in the family, before the funeral rites of the deceased Velichappad, a family member must ordained the new Velichappad. Mahesh claims he had shown signs of possession such as shivering and getting into trance-like conditions even before his father’s funeral rites got over. Moreover, his village, which is home to a large community of Velichappads, has made his ascension to be one of them an inescapable and inherited choice.

Mahesh expresses that not many in his generation have become Velichappads because, according to him, it is not a way of life that suits the present-day younger generation. Mahesh has imbibed in him the fact that he is a Velichappad, but the tension it will bring in, he could not fully foresee. Now one major struggle he faces is finding a suitable bride. At 34, Mahesh is already past the desirable marriage age given the social norms of his village. Yet he admits that he longs to get married like many of his friends. His well-wishers have been unsuccessfully trying to find a bride for him for many years now. Savithri Velichappad, one of his mentors, has taken it upon herself to find a bride for him now. The interest she takes for him has got a lot to do with her own life. Savithri, who is in her late 50s now, has never been married. When she used to get proposals in her younger years, she was asked by the priests to either choose marriage or the goddess. After her parents' death, with all her siblings married and settled elsewhere, loneliness has crept into her, and she longs for a companion now. Being one of the senior Velichappad women in the area, she has taken it upon herself to find suitable brides and grooms for other young Velichappads, finding a bride for Mahesh, however, remains challenging for her. Savithri says, “All women withdraw when they know that Mahesh is a Velichappad as they are looking for well-educated men. All the girls he had met turned him down, citing one excuse or the other. Women today do not want to marry Velichappads,” she rues. ¹⁵ And Mahesh supports her saying, “every woman wants her man to be having a government job.” ¹⁶ However, this does not affect Mahesh’s commitment to being a Velichappad, and he truly believes that one day Bhagavathi will get him the right woman.

What Mahesh goes through is not unique. On one hand, being a vehicle of the goddess is a revered position in a religious society, but on the other, this realm of religiosity misfits in the marriage economy, exposing a certain paradox of religious societies. Some other narratives show the bitter separation from partners. Siva is a prominent face among the Velichappads and belongs to a Palakkad village bordering Tamil Nadu. He became a Velichappad when he was 12 years old, despite being discouraged by his family. He says, “my parents said even if I wanted to become a Velichappad, I could do so after the schooling and some higher studies. But then I fell sick and was taken to Kodungallur, wherein they were told that I was possessed by the Bhagavathi.” ¹⁷ Siva who married out of compulsion from family has a story of separation from his partner just after 3 months of marriage. Siva says, “We couldn’t continue well. She was well educated, while I was only a XIIth pass. She wanted to enjoy her life, whereas I was only concerned about the temple and the associated activities. I was like this as a child. So, I decided to continue as a Velichappad no matter what.”

Siva says his ex-wife is accomplished now with a good government job and he does not regret to accept that his decision to become a Velichappad affected his family life. Siva’s testimony reinforces his commitment to Bhagavathi irrespective of the innumerable hurdles he faced, and he reiterates that he draws his strength from Amma Bhagavathi. He rationalises this resolve by saying, “many people discontinue from being absolved as a Velichappad because of the circumstances at home and therefore their children do not inherit it.” This is a common concern shared widely by other Velichappads. “Who will continue the tradition after us?”, they ask with a frown. Some older Velichappads like Devachan live a lonely life, entirely devoted to Bhagavathi. Devachan became a Velichappad when he was 10 and is 69 now. He lives alone with a helper. Even pushing 70, he tries his level best to be on-time at all the invites, which are, of course, far and few these days.

These first-person narratives point towards the need to develop a conceptual framework in understanding possession that recognises the intricacies of marriage, masculinity, and the larger society. Babu Velichappad had to make almost no compromises compared to most of his peers in building a family for himself, because of the reputed position he enjoys socially and financially. But for Hari Velichappad being a Velichappad is not at the cost of his family nor is it a full-time vocation, having understood and accepted the limitations. While Mahesh Velichappad, lives with a strong desire to get married, Siva Velichappad has come to terms with his short-lived marriage. Once these conflicting narratives are factored in, two structures emerge, revealing the complexities in the process: family relations in which Velichappads experience oddities, and the personal desires for conjugality in which they experience tension. The prevalent social and economic order privileges the monogamous, patriarchal family that celebrates the structural logic of masculinity (Geetha 1998). The possession ritual constructs masculinity that is more materially bounded. The life of a Velichappad exists at the conjuncture of a changing society wherein their desire for a married life conflict with their divine experiences. The upper caste ideal of sacrificing sex, or compromising on sexual desires and life, is not a norm among Velichappads. Their non-homogeneity is reflected in how Velichappads respond to the concerns of marriage and its attendant responsibilities differently. Velichappads negotiate with whatever structures and resources are available to them, and mostly socioeconomic conditions determine the responses. As we move forward, we see how reading these narratives and understanding the unsettling of the gender, is an essential aspect of unravelling these complexities.

Unsettling the Gender: Many Dimensions

A desire for heteronormative conjugality and the difficulties in actualising them reflect the complexities faced by Velichappad men in nurturing social relationships. This section delves deeper into understanding how gender and gendered norms affect Velichappads, thereby making possession a socially situated phenomenon. It further looks at how the concerns expressed in the earlier section inform us about the masculinity of Velichappads. To better understand the sexual economies at play around Velichappads, it is important to look at the mediations involved in the process of becoming Velichappads. Even though there is a general idea that anyone can become possessed irrespective of their age or gender, the reality is far from this. As a result, unmarried women, under the strict patriarchal control of their families, are mostly discouraged from becoming possessed or leading the life of a Velichappad, but the same is not the case with unmarried men. There are two reasons for this as said by Velichappads and their families. First, there is little prospectus for a woman Velichappad to get married. Second, the family of a would-be Velichappad woman fears her having to face problems in her family life, particularly in the early years of marriage. These families refer to the differentiated power play that may develop in such scenarios.

The 18-years-old Remya hailing from a Palakkad village is mothered by a Velichappad herself. She has been regularly accompanying her mother and her group of about 30 people for the Kodungallur Bharani festivals ever since she was a little child. And she claims she had the character traits of a possessed even as a child. But her family members, through certain rituals, ensured that she would not get possessed as she was still a virgin and unmarried. Similar is the story of becoming for her mother. Her mother saw in herself a Velichappad when she was just about 12. However, her mother’s father discouraged her, saying she was a child. Remya says, “my grandfather then prayed to the family god to take it away from his daughter. Immediately after marriage, my mother again started showing traits of a Velichappad. My grandfather assured my father that he would only give his daughter to a man and not a Bhagavathi to him. The grandfather then prayed that until his death his daughter shouldn’t become a Velichappad.” ¹⁸ Remya’s mother became a Velichappad soon after the death of her grandfather.

Similarly, Lalitha’s family as well as other senior Velichappads had stopped her from becoming a Velichappad. The 18-years-old Lalitha says, “now I understand why I was stopped because I was only 15 then and had a lot of life left to live. There is a lot of work to be done in life. If I become a Velichappad, I will have to follow many rituals. With my menstrual cycle, it will not be easy for me.” ¹⁹ The differences between a woman as a social being and a goddess are maintained without any contradictions in a patriarchal society (Rajan 1998). Her divinity is halted or made to wait until these familial responsibilities are fulfilled. This angst is not seen in the case of men, though.

Among Velichappads, particularly men, there are interpretations on the limitations to possession. Ganeshan Velichappad of Wayanad, says there is no minimum or maximum age cap to become a Velichappad, as one forgets oneself in the process. But many times, when unmarried women show the character traits of a Velichappad, they are discouraged. In all cases of a darshanam (enlightenment), the family is asked for agreement. He says that if it is before marriage, there is a strong chance that the marriage doesn’t work. Further, he says that families have problems when young women choose to become Velichappads. “Women might get darshanam even after getting married and having children. But it is tough for a Velichappad woman to make her marriage work. Once they became Velichappads, they cannot have any relationship of a husband and wife. Husbands thus will have a bad time. Velichappad women enter a different world that is disconnected from worldly pleasures. And to get a husband who understands this is very difficult. There are instances in which the husband becomes an alcoholic. There are regular fights, and there is no peace in the family,” ²⁰ is how Ganeshan sees it.

Ganeshan who is critical of young women becoming Velichappads opines men can become Velichappads with equal commitment as there is a goddess in them always. Ganeshan explains that when a man is possessed, he is not switching between the genders, “a Velichappad always has a Bhadrakali in him. It is not just for a day. But there is always a goddess and femininity in us every day. They always carry that bhakti, chaithanyam, and roopam. It is always present in a balanced manner and exists always there in our subconscious minds,” he says. ²¹ In a similar line, Gopalan Velichappad, who lives close by to Ganeshan, says that in becoming a Velichappad, which he believes takes 3 years of visits to the Kodungallur Bharani, ²² a man gains energy that draws him closer to the Bhagavathi. He uses that energy to enter a state of mind to feel that njan ammayanu (I am the mother). He says, “we get close to divinity by becoming a Bhagavathi. And then we become a different person, we change our character and gestures, which goes away only when we communicate to the divine. And we have to let it go.” ²³

These narratives indicate a certain way in which Velichappads themselves understand their possession. They do not see it as a momentary switching between the two genders but as a co-existence of both the genders within themselves in the form of a goddess. Being a Velichappad gives both Ganeshan and Gopalan a certain sanctity to express in a non-fixated and non-rigid manner of their genders. “We forget our body when the goddess enters us and then we don’t realise what happens to us,” is how Siva Velichappad explains the experience. Siva holds the same view as that of Ganeshan and Gopalan on this and reiterates his experience of forgetting his physical existence or stating differently, his own bodily existence when possessed. Such narratives, even though not actively directed towards self-identification, ²⁴ begs one to question, what is the gender of the possessed or what happens to the gender of the possessed? (Ram 2013). More importantly, does a male Velichappad have more fluidity of the gender compared to a woman Velichappad?

The fact is that imagining that a man becomes a goddess when possessed blurs the idea of gender. But it would be limiting to see the experience of male Velichappads as a one-time event. For further understanding, it is important to note the specific processes of change that occur in male Velichappads. There are different processes, in which each one engages differently to bring in a certain degree of bodily alterations and become a Velichappad. There are no written rules for it, though. This is facilitated by the need to appear like a goddess, as they are the goddesses' mediators when possessed, and a man becoming a goddess should be acceptable to the devotees as much as for himself. One of the significant changes in their appearance is growing their hair. Long hair that sways when in a trance is one of the salient characteristic images of a Velichappad. So, most Velichappad men make it a point to have long hair. Those male Velichappads who do not grow hair are motivated to do so by fellow Velichappads. Siva has made it a point that he will not grow his hair despite being quite often taunted by his fellow Velichappads. On the other hand, Ganeshan Velichappad, who is bald, had once tried a long wig, but unfortunately did not work, and since then he decided to come to terms with his baldness. Bodily alterations also imply shaving the torso and other exposed body parts while sporting the attire of a Velichappad. Velichappads are also particular about their clothing, which includes ornaments. When decked up, some Velichappads wear as many as 10 chains and 30 bangles. But there are no written rules on any of these practices, nor are they followed by every Velichappad. At the Kodungallur Bharani, Velichappad men mostly come in a red sari, which is draped in half. The idea is to dress like the goddess, feel like her and be her. Many Velichappads follow the non-normative dressing and ornamentation patterns beyond the event of possession.

Non-acceptance or rejection of being effeminate is a reality many male Velichappads live with. ²⁵ Babu is an ardent believer that a male Velichappad should not be effeminate. He is very critical of effeminate male Velichappads and blames it as the main reason for the “bad reputation” Velichappads has come to live with. He insists that living like a woman is not what it means to become a goddess and is cautious about those male Velichappads who are effeminate in their gestures. He says that Velichappads applying nail polish, wearing underskirt beneath their dhoti and decking up in too many ornaments and spotting a bindi are nothing but doing a “fancy dress.” ²⁶ Similarly, another young Velichappad, Deepu who hails from the Kozhikode district, also opines that Velichappads are only the mediators of the goddess, and those who show up as effeminate on becoming the goddess, are wrong and misses the spirit of being possessed. ²⁷ Thus, certain section of Velichappads hold on to a particular understanding of how Velichappads should adhere to their masculinity, even in possession.

Similar reflections can also be seen elsewhere in the public sphere in Kerala. A Malayalam television channel, in a show entitled Kaanatha Keralam (Unseen Kerala), aired the story of Udayan Velichappad. ²⁸ The investigative format of the show, was aimed at uncovering the superstitions people like Udayan perpetuate under the guise of being possessed. The male reporter in the show poses himself - as a devotee and seeks solutions for his problems, which are in fact created by the reporter himself. Udayan Velichappad is shown as giving live solutions to the problems the reporter poses apart from suggesting some corrective measures. The reporter then goes on to expose Velichappad as a fraud by stating that he pretends to be a female to gain more attention. The reporter then also claims that by speaking in a female voice Udayan has acted fraudulently.

Similarly, during the fieldwork at the shrine of Udayan Velichappad, this researcher was warned by a few Velichappads who are more popular, that their peers at the temple were not the “proper” Velichappads. Not just that, they also advised this writer to “observe their effeminacy and have fun.” But what is more important is why such warnings and advice are given in the first place. Udayan’s shrine is in one of the poorest localities in a village of Palakkad bordering Tamil Nadu. Udayan is a Dalit ²⁹ and is also effeminate in his gestures. Most devotees and residents in the areas are also Dalits and are poor working-class, mostly engaged in daily-wage work. Udayan had advanced his economic standing with the money he earned through his ritual practices. Still, his experiences show he has a low level of social acceptance even among his peers Velichappads who are Ezhavas. For the public and his peers, Udayan’s belief is suspect primarily due to his caste identity and effeminacy. That symbolic power does not translate into social controls in a casteist society is evident from the social and economic vulnerabilities (Anandhi 2013). The meaning of social status transformations can only be understood by interrogating the caste realities and gender experiences of Velichappads. Thus, as Williams (1989) points out, it can be observed that the cultural and spiritual processes cannot be fully comprehended unless they are seen in the whole real conditions of human existence.

This section has tried to understand the gendered dimensions of the possessed, which helps to unravel the conjugal tension and thus the whole marital ties of Velichappads. For a possession ritually rooted in the tradition of the mother goddess, we have seen how unmarried women are prevented from becoming Velichappads for fear of social norms and how it will cripple their conjugal lives. Men do not face such constraints from their families, though. However, after they become Velichappads, some questions arise on their masculinity. Acceptance of everyday gendered experiences comes with conflicts, which we have seen in the earlier narratives. The category of masculinity should be seen as always ambivalent, always complicated, still dependent on the exigencies of the personal and institutional power structure and equations (Berger et al. 1995, 3). Debates on gendered experiences often bracket such experiences into the discourses on transgender questions. However, in the case of Velichappads, their gender makes it possible for an analysis of intersecting structures of domination, differences, and diversities (Rege 2003). Because such experiences demand a conceptual framework that would radically rethink gender experiences with possession as an entry point.

Gramsci (1971), in his study on folklores, notes that alternate conceptions of the world and life have succeeded one another in human history as a confused agglomerate of fragments, and therefore, studying such surviving evidence, degraded and mutilated though, are essential to study of history better. He also notes that the weakness of philosophies is that they cannot create an ideological unity between the classes. Such a conception can be developed to inform a particularly radical notion in the study of gender. There is unchallenged masculinity that runs through all forms and in all relations. There already exist propositions on the need to look beyond masculinity as a naturalised relation of manliness and power or the male prowess, therefore the need to develop a more rooted understanding of the social construction of masculinity (Halberstem 2019). This paper argues that such propositions of masculinity should also be informed from the learnings of these experiences of the given society as well.

Conclusion

Through the first-person narrative experiences of Velichappad men, this paper has attempted to understand the gendered underpinnings of being possessed, particularly looking at the tension surrounding their conjugal obligations. Complexities of gendered experiences of a possessed go beyond the ritual performances to their everyday living, impacted by their caste and class position. Once possessed, Velichappads do not see themselves as male or female, or their bodies as a masculine or feminine, instead they differentiate the experiences of their gender from that of a mortal female, asserting that the figure of goddess Bhagavathi must be seen as one different from a mortal woman. There are assertions of masculinity and conformity to social relationships realised through a heteronormative marriage. But this does come with many challenges. For Velichappad men, being higher in the socioeconomic ladder and being masculine enough help them conform to the demands of marriage as an institution. The process of negotiations in the entire process throws light into how non-homogenous Velichappads are and how their socioeconomic conditions operate in the realm of the possessed, wherein the fluidity in the gendered manifestations becomes secondary for some Velichappads. As much as possession makes Velichappads divine embodiments, there is a simultaneous effort by them to be a social being by entering into conjugality. The divinity of a possessed and the non-divinity of the everyday are not separate parallel structures but are infused and enmeshed together. This paper also prompts a conceptual framework towards understanding the masculinities informed by these experiences. Interrogating the experiences of Velichappad men thus becomes a means of charting the histories of sexual economies of the region, and its social and material embedding.