Kappalottam: Sailing on Fasted Shoulders
Ship Procession or “Kappalottam” at Kuravilangad Church Every January, the ropes that tie her 40-foot-long body to the walls of the Kuravilangad Church in coastal Kerala are undone. Held up on the shoulders of fasting men, she moves with the throng around her outside the church, enacting the mythical memory of a storm. She has […]
Seablindness, according to a chief officer
Painting a ship
The Pirate Ship
“We were rolling from one side to another.” Adan was telling me his pirate tale. One moonless night in 2011, he was on a small fishing skiff with six other men somewhere in the Indian Ocean. On this journey, instead of tuna, the skiff was on the hunt for cargo ships. After some maneuvering to […]