With rhythm and raag: When she performed Kathakali after 70 years

Born in a traditional Namboodiri family in Kerala’s Malappuram district in 1943, Parvathy Antharjanam aka Kumari was lucky to learn Kathakali when she was ten years old. The women in the community were not allowed to learn Kathakali those days as they were mostly restricted to the interiors of the ancestral homes.

Kumari’s father Neelakandan Namboodiripad was an exception though to the existing patriarchal hierarchy in the Namboodiri families. Being a promoter of the avant-garde, he wanted his daughter to learn music and dance. When Kumari was not interested in music, he arranged for a senior artist to teach her Kathakali. The master would stay at their ancestral home in Palur (a village in Malappuram) and train Kumari. A quick learner, Kumari did her arangetram (dance debut) when she was 12. Sadly, however, when Kumari attained menarche, she was asked not to perform Kathakali anymore. A marriage with a physics professor and responsibilities associated with it brought in a stumbling block to her artistic career eventually.

Kathakali, however, remained an undercurrent in her day-to-day life. As a homemaker, she took care of her husband and three sons well and managed to find time to watch Kathakali performances held in the locality.

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Although her husband Narayanan Namboodiri was not interested in the dance form, he never had any problem with his wife going to watch performances. A couple of weeks ago, when Kumari performed Kathakali at the Kallekulangara Kathakali Gramam in Palakkad after a gap of 70 years, the event evoked tremendous response. The performance lasted only for three minutes, but Kumari, a breast cancer survivor, underwent the customary make-up four hours before the show began. Her husband and sons were a little worried about her health. But she was very confident and didn’t give room for any uncertainties. Experts who watched her perform said her style was genuine and authentic and the way she held mudras (hand gestures) were special as she followed a tradition that existed almost a century ago in Kathakali.

As a child, Kumari had performed with stalwarts such as Kunju Nair (1909-1981) and Guru Kunju Kurup (1881-1970). Kumari said she was happy as she could perform after 70 long years. “I never thought I would perform Kathakali again in my life. I am grateful to my father who made all the arrangements for my training when I was a child. As an art form, Kathakali underwent a lot of innovations over the years. Many who watched me perform here told me that the way I used many mudras (hand gestures) was special. I too realised it only when they told me. I did what I learnt from my gurus 70 years ago,” said Kumari.

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Although Kumari was a regular to the Kathakali programmes even after she and her husband had relocated from Ottapalam to Palakkad four years ago, she never had a plan to perform Kathakali on stage. After hearing the story of Kumari from a priest, renowned Kathakali Guru Kalamandalam Venkitaraman visited her home one day. Being the founder of Kallekulangara Kathakali Gramam (a famous institute in Palakkad, which has trained thousands of women in Kathakali since it was launched in 2006), Venkitaraman is known for his innovative role in bringing back to stage many senior Kathakali artists. When he asked Kumari whether she would be able to perform before a small group, she politely declined. Venkitaraman didn’t give up. He requested Kumari to display at least two mudras of her choice for which she agreed. As she displayed the mudras, Venkitaraman prostrated before her out of his sheer respect for the century-old style of precision in the hand gestures. 

An alumnus of Kerala Kalamandalam, a major performing arts institute of Kerala, Venkitaraman said that it took years of hard-work and dedication which eventually helped him nurture the mudras stylistically and meaningfully. “She learnt Kathakali from very senior artists of that time. None of her gurus are alive today. The lessons that she learnt from those stalwarts still remain. And that’s what struck me when she displayed the mudras. Even though she displayed only two mudras, that was more than enough to tell us the uniqueness and precision of her style,” said Venkitaraman.

Kumari’s instant reaction for a stage performance was negative but Venkitaraman sensed the artist inside her wanted to perform badly. The revelation, however, helped. Knowing Kumari’s age-related illness, Venkitaraman sorted out a brief performance schedule for her.

“It was after seven decades that she was going to perform so we thought of making her sit and do the role of lord Vishnu in Koormavatharam, which tells the story of Kurma (tortoise), the second incarnation of Vishnu, during the churning of the milky ocean. When the gods approached Vishnu for a solution to their mortality due to a curse by Rishi Durvasa, the lord asked them to churn the ocean with the demons to obtain the nectar of immortality. Kurma's role is to support the churning rod, Mount Mandara, which was slipping into the ocean. She did it in three minutes and the energy, mental as well as physical, that she displayed at the age of 82 was remarkable,” he said. Venkitaraman, however, was a bit cautious. “We should not make the elderly artists a testing stone. We should make them do simple acts that they could and get maximum from them. We should not load them with heavy and long characters. We can learn a lot from her as she comes from a rich tradition of Kathakali artists,” he added.

Lalitha in Poothanamoksham and Krisha in Kuchelavritham were the main two characters that Kumari played when she was a child. In Kathakali, lord Krishna doesn’t wear a crown but Vishnu does. “I myself asked a couple of times whether I would be able to carry a crown while doing the role of Vishnu. The credit goes to Venkitaraman, who made me sit and act, which I could manage fairly well in three minutes. The timing was also perfect,” said Kumari. “My father Neelakandan Namboodiripad was a man of great skills. In 1993, he received the national award for excellence in coconut shell craft from the then President of India, Shankar Dayal Sharma. He was the one who first found the spark in me and encouraged me. I got tremendous support from my three sons. My second son Sajeev and the third one Sajeesh were with me for through the preparations for the show. They also helped me during the practice sessions. The event was special for them as they hadn’t seen me in a Kathakali costume before,” she added.

“This photo is special — it captures my mother just as she is removing her Kathakali costume, with my father sitting beside her. It’s a powerful testament to the fact that age is just a number,” wrote Sajeesh, who has documented the whole event, after posting the photo on a social networking site. True, the picture is special for Kumari as well. Her husband, who was not very fond of Kathakali, made a strange request to her. “Can you wear the Kathakali costume once more, please,” he asked her soon after the show got over. “I consider the question as the best award that I won so far,” said Kumari, who doesn’t know when she will perform next. “I don’t have any immediate plans. As far as the fire is inside, I may perform. But I don’t know when,” she said.