Adbhutam

"....Sringaaram. Haasyam. Karunam. Raudram. Veeram. Bhayaanakam. Beebhalsam. You [the Kathakali artist] have learnt to identify the thought that leads to each one of these emotions and to school your features accordingly. You have seen how first the thought, then your breath, then your face resolves the process from knowing to experiencing to expressing. There is a build-up, so to say. Not so with adbhutam. For this emotion alone does not offer you a time frame within which you may work on the feeling.

For adbhutam is wonder. And wonder is immediate. It cannot be premeditated or calculated. If you do that, it isn't wonder.

That is the hallmark of wonder. A curiosity to know, a yearning to possess. And when you do, the wonder ceases. That is the nature of adbhutam. To be transient. For you will never known it again in exactly the same degree."

Book 3: Adbhutam
Mistress
Anita Nair