The Way of the Bow Festival - January 30 - Feb 1 ‘2026

The title same as the book by Paulo Coelho is about drawing a metaphorical parallel to life with the bow & the arrow. From the 60's generation many would remember playing this as a kid. We (Me and my cousin) made the bows & arrows ourselves with the grooved metal ribs of the trademark black umbrella. We used to sharpen the tip of the metal, tie up a strong cotton twine string and hooray, we used turn into heroes like in the epic stories that were told to us. My aunt used to call us Raman & Krishnan. Generally speaking there are too many people talking about life and life's tribulations, success factors, failure causes etc. using different metaphors. I have read 1 book of Paulo Coelho, Alchemist but since my coincidental adventure into archery at the way of the bow festival, I am encouraged to learn more about this particular dying art and gather some wisdom that Dhanur Vidya has given to our world. My friend who invited me to be part of this wonderful adventure gave me a taste of some of the finer nuances of archery, the traditional archery (which is the dying art) we are referring to.

So the story goes this way and that is the way of the bow!. One man's passion fuels another man's interest and another man's discovery path. I have written something called the 'cycle of life' mostly with regard to the temporal side of it as I have yet to climb the difficult phase of the spiritual path because the mind keeps taking you there yet the detours are so pervasive that human nature just cannot overcome it perhaps.

If you ask someone about Dhanur Vidya or Dhanur Veda the majority of us will draw a blank. And this is just one part of the legacy that we don't know anything. It could be said that The way of the bow festival will foster larger interest amongst people. One need not read Paulo Coelho for that. We have practitioners of ancient martial arts and tribal forms to make sense of it all. With my limited knowledge on traditional archery and not having read any books such as the one mentioned what i gathered was something which I picked up at the festival.

If you Google Archery there is no reference to this ancient arts of Archery, that which comes out of Dhanur Vidya and Dhanur Veda. There is a footnote though. One could argue, during ancient times most teachings were handed over orally which is called 'Shruti' in Sanskrit and since published documents were unavailable, I suppose the knowledge passing down would have followed the Guru-Shisya tradition. Now, if you ask the modern archer, in India he might have heard of Dhanur Vidya but to the international archer they wouldn't know. Yoga itself was trying to be patented in some foreign country until one fine day and every year since then Yoga day was celebrated with a lot of gaiety so much so that like in ancient times we did not need patent rights. That is the way it is. Similarly traditional archery will also become an olympic sport some day, just like how we wish for Kabaddi and other such games.

As one delves deep into anything with intent, one finds very unusual and sometimes very obvious coincidences. First thing that caught my imagination was how every sport has turned into a cultivated interest with the collaterals or the accessories that go along with the sport. We had archers from Leh-Ladakh, Punjab, Himachal, UP, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and a large contingent of kids & adults from Malaysia. If you watch each individual, they all had a distinct attire that shows how individuality is expressed and how passion drives people to take time out and explore different things at far away places. Nedumangad in Thiruvananthapuram is in the southern tip of India and the place seemingly has an ideal terrain to practice some of the field archery challenges to sharpen up your skills. With the morning coolness warming just like fast passing clouds below the sun, the temperature moderately rises to warm and hot but thanks to the barks of the rubber trees, it seemed as if the barks were absorbing some of that heat from the rising sun so one still feels comfortable but only if you are carrying a lot of water to keep your internal system moist and brimful with energy.

Field archery for me was new, archery itself was new, the professional ways... but when you enter the space your mind conjures up a stream of thoughts of what would have been as you feel the ground underneath you breathing heavily in the midst of tall trees and the only sound you hear is of the rustling up of the leaves. The benevolent host of the place had kept the leaves talking to each other for months waiting for the company of people who would tread the path into nowhere and from thence would emerge a lonely archer rearing to find the deeper woods.

This particular place is underneath the Agashthya koodam mountains. The legends of Agasthya Koodam is about the long history and the evolution of man, wildlife, weapons, warfare & the ultimate survival. What stands out as little remnants from the past is what takes you back in time. At the 'Warrior Temple' as I would like to call, it is the little pad perched up on the hill yet actually, literally looking like the little pad is sitting under this huge rock. Sitting under a rock? This hiding place is for another story but the Warrior Temple will stand witness to see some of the great moments of the contemporary times and we will together pull the string inwards in order to release and free our minds.

In a dry post-winter month of January in a tropical place like Kerala, you see all the leaves withering away and the ground constantly blanketed with brown & yellowish leaves, almost as if the leaves and the ground beneath have an untold secret guarded between them about the archers that raided this path.

The Way of the bow is a tribute to archers who walked this path and we hope to make more friends along the way.

Pause a moment...