Well, as my last posting showed, I was royally entertained at Trongsa tshechu. The games started daily at 9 a.m. and the show closed around 5 p.m. Clearly this was an event for the locals - and a big one at that. It was lovely to see how much people were enjoying themselves!
Many generations were present, from the old to the relatively new born.
Monks and commoners alike.
And lots of small children behaving in an exemplary way that parents only dream of in Finland!
But children and pensioners would both, no doubt, start to fidget even here if all there was to entertain them was twirling monks. How to entertain them? The answer is glaringly obvious: there must be clowns!
Now I am firmly opposed to the traditional Western concept of circus clowns. They often represent a refined form of torture by boredom for me. But these clowns were of a better breed alltogether! They also had an important role in the rituals. Firstly, they acted as the helpers of the monks if their dresses or masks got into disarray during the long dances, which sometimes lasted over and hour each. Secondlly they introduced the next programme to the crowd by enacting little pantomime sketches of the content to come before the real performers came on stage. At times the clowns also played parts in the actual performances, such as here, giving a piggyback ride to a drunken doctor.
Above all, these clowns played it by ear. A stray dog that unwisely wondered into the court in the middle of a dance got chased around by clowns until it ran yelping out of the ring. However a moment later when a stray puppy wondered up, it got cuddled and carried around like a little baby by these same clowns.
At other times they pummelled the audience and each other with semi-soft footballs attached to strings (I got my own fair share, when sneaking up too close to stage to take a photo).
And often the clowns got up close and personal with their penises, floppy
or hard.
Now, as we all know, penises are a very fortuitous thing for Bhutanese Buddhists. They represent not only fertility but protection against bad thoughts and feelings. Yes, paintings of penises abound on the walls of buildings here nearly as often as on the walls of Finnish railway underpasses and with much more colour and artistic flair.
But back to the clowns. They must be deeply versed in the art of religious dancing not to inadvertently do something unforgiveable at the last moment. On top of this, they must prepare for the perfomance mentally by praying and refusing impure habits such and drinking alcohol and sex for about a month before the performance.
Yes, you heard right. No sex for a month, you clowns! I wonder how many young married men are queueing up for the privilige of being a clown? Possibly in Bhutan it's not so much "not today honey, I have a headache" as "not today honey, I have a performance in 3 weeks".
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