She danced when she was eight months pregnant. And when she was nursing her young children. When they cried, she fed them, and went back to the performance. She has been dancing since she was 11. Now, 55 years later, when she wears her ornate papier-mâché horse over her hip and the rich and royal costume, she dances not like the wife, mother and grandmother she is, but a professional and great performer, agile on tall wooden stilts, never missing a single beat of the Maratha drums. Meet Kamachi, the queen of poikaal kudhirai .
Poikaal Kudhirai (literally: false-legged horse) came to Tamil Nadu when the Maratha kings conquered Thanjavur. “My husband’s family fled Maharashtra during a great drought.” Kamachi had heard this from a grand aunt. “She told me they came here as drummers and dancers and stayed on.” They also brought with them their culture. Kamachi picked it up when she got married, a very young 11-year-old bride, who learnt to wear her sari pallu over her head and speak fluent Marathi. She also learnt their dance.
An art form that demands great stamina and skill, Poikaal kudhirai — once favoured in the royal court — precedes the deity in temple processions. It was extremely popular in weddings and festivals. But now, it’s often replaced by other (sometimes coarse) entertainment; and it’s hit by curfews and clamp-downs on all-night events. Full-time performers find it hard going. Over half have quit. Others, like Kamachi’s husband T.A.R. Nadi Rao (74) and his family, are carrying forward — with difficulty — a tradition that came south with his ancestors, the Mahrattas.
Kamachi was born in Pattukottai, Tamil Nadu. She grew up watching and admiring poikaal kudhirai when her in-laws and husband performed in her village. “My mother-in-law saw me when I was 11, and asked my mother: ‘She’s a beauty. Will you marry her to my son?’” Kamachi’s mother agreed. But her relatives scoffed: “They are a family of koothu dancers.”
Despite their opposition, eight days later (on 12-06-1960) Kamachi married Nadi Rao. Her elder son, Shivaji Rao, an accomplished folk dancer, showed me the faded wedding invitation. We were seated around the dining table in their house in Vadakku Vaasal, Thanjavur. The shelves and walls were filled with medals, shields and certificates. And then there were photographs — of Kamachi and Nadi Rao — standing just like the royal couple they represent in dance.
Six-months after her wedding, Kamachi wore the salangai (ankle bells). It was her father-in-law — Kamachi calls him her guru — who told her to take up dancing. “He advised me, ‘If you have the inclination, learn. Wear the salangai . It will help you and your family in the future.’ He was right!”
Her husband became her teacher. He taught her Karagattam, an ancient folk dance of Tamil Nadu. Her first performance — ungainly, she laughs — was unexpectedly well received. She was rewarded with fistfuls of silver coins. Soon, she was performing the Kuravan-Kurathi dance with her husband. Her first poikaal recital was in Tiruchendur when she was 30. “It was torturous,” she says of the learning. “I practiced walking on stilts, on this very road, outside the house, for two whole days.” The third day, she wore the horse. The poikaal dancer was born.
Kamachi quickly made a name for herself. With fame came opportunities. Programmes were rescheduled if she was busy. She recalls several occasions, when, on the same evening, she changed costumes in a hurry and performed two difficult and demanding forms — Karagam and Poikaal . Her pay? Rs.10 or Rs.12. But back then it was decent money. “With one rupee I could buy a measure of rice, vegetables, meat, and also save an anna for a film at Krishna Talkies! Now, the half-kg toor dal that we bought for an anna is Rs.50!”
It was for that Rs.12-a-day that Kamachi, her husband, and younger son Jeeva Rao travelled to Delhi in 1982. For two whole months, they rehearsed every freezing morning, for the Asiad Games’ cultural events. That performance brought many other opportunities. Kamachi danced night and day during festival time. “It was very, very hard. But I didn’t mind the rigours of dancing. I needed the money.” She had to educate and clothe her growing children, put rice in the pot. “We ate when we danced!” What hurt was the resentment towards her art. The worst jabs were from close family, who refused to marry their daughter to her son. “‘You will make our daughter dance on the street like you!’ they said.” Even today, years after her sons are happily married, she’s upset by those words.
Poikaal is a godly art, Kamachi says. Her husband calls it deadly: it’s vigorous, with flashing swords, stomping wooden stilts and beats and turns that rise to a crescendo. ‘One wrong step, when you’re wearing all the gear, you’ll fall heavily.’ The stilts, ankle bells the horse and costume together weigh 20-25kg. Which is why, in addition to the performers and drummers, they need assistants. Which adds to the troupe’s cost. The going (seasonal) rate for a performance is around Rs.40,000. It includes the poikaal dancers and karagam, kavadi, mayil and maadu dancers, besides the drummers and assistants. The luggage usually fills a mini-lorry. It takes 1.5 hours to do the make-up. And an hour to pack up.
It was even more challenging in Kamachi’s in-law’s time. She had heard them speak of travelling for days, on a twin-bullock cart, with food parcels and the heavy gear, for faraway performances. They would put on their make-up in the light of a thee pandam (wooden torch). And two generations ago, it was the men who danced as women! “My father-in-law’s father was a dancer. But, in his time, no women danced. My mother-in-law and her sister were perhaps the first female poikaal performers.”
The women danced well into their pregnancy, their bellies hidden by the horse. Nadi Rao was born when his mother travelled for a programme. Kamachi too danced in her eighth month of pregnancy. Women, in fact, began dancing so that there was some money to feed the family. The men, when they earned Rs.10, spent Rs.7 on country liquor. It ate into the family’s appetite, kept them constantly hungry. All that changed when women took up the art.
It also changed Kamachi’s life. She lists the countries — a long roster — she’s visited; she hadn’t previously even heard their names, she had never been to school. During the Karagattam days she travelled extensively with her children. ‘When I put on powder (make-up) you could barely recognise me! And, nobody would believe I had birthed six children.’ The photographs were proof. She was small, slim-waisted and very pretty, in an elegant full skirt, half-sari and the heavy pot on her head. Standing around her were men and women in suits and skirts, who paid handsomely in silver coins when she performed tricks — threading a lemon, opening a soda bottle with her teeth, fire-eating.
Those tricks have left scars on her body. The soda-bottle caps took several teeth with them. ‘The front teeth are all false!’ she flashes a toothy smile. She’s got a nagging acidity from drinking 10 sodas a day (she would drink without touching the bottle with her hands) on a near-empty stomach. Gargling with kerosene to ‘eat’ fire ruined her oesophagus.
But Kamachi doesn’t dwell on this. Instead, she berates me for not asking about her salary. “Back then, I got Rs. 5 for a programme.” She pauses dramatically. “My husband? Rs. 3!” Nearly a third less. Today, women’s costumes are shorter; the pay is higher (Rs.4,000-5,000). “But I won’t criticise them, they’re only adapting to changing times.”
Not all changes are welcome though. Nadi Rao is especially scathing about some. “We used to perform in the Brihadeeshwara temple in Thanjavur twice-thrice a year. But not any more, because they prefer artists from Madurai or Madras over local ones.” Rao is also deeply upset about the attitude in Tamil Nadu. “I have travelled to Dubai, Istanbul and London. There, they celebrate this art. They press us to stay there longer. But in Tamil Nadu, poikaal kudhirai is not regarded highly anymore.” Add the huge drop in the number of opportunities to perform — from one a day in his father’s time to once a month now, it’s impossible to be full-time artists and run a household. Kamachi deeply resents the preference for a certain kind of dancer. “Everybody now wants younger, fairer, prettier girls (whether or not they can dance) to come onto the stage. But then, what will I do? All I know is to dance!”
The dance brought Nadi Rao impressive awards: Kalaimamani, and last year, the Sangeet Natak Akademi award (shared with his son, Jeeva Rao, a renowned drummer) from the President. Kamachi holds up the framed certificate tenderly, and hopes her husband wins more. And she says it without a trace of jealousy.
But there’s plenty of jealousy in the art world, Shivaji rues, and a sneering, step motherly attitude to folk arts. “Classical artistes stay in hotels; we’re asked to sleep in schools or verandahs; tiffin is taken to their room, we have to go get ours; they’re given bottled water, better transport…” To crown the insults, folk artists are paid Rs.800 per person (Rs.12,000 for a troupe of 15). A classical troupe of five takes home maybe twice that. And all this by organisations whose job is to preserve the arts.
It’s these injustices that prevent Kamachi from repeating to her grand-children the advice her father-in-law gave her. “Where’s the future in dance?” Except, she says that only when she’s anguished and bitter. Because, the dancer in her wants her sons to take forward the art, her grandson to be initiated in it. “Even today, when I wear the ankle-bells, I’m energised. When I remove them, I feel drained.” Because then, her responsibilities crowd her: she needs to feed the chicken, rescue the one that fell into the gutter; then she’s got to fetch water.
Late one evening (when I first met her in her Thanjavur house) Kamachi and Nadi Rao were showing me pictures from their Germany and Turkey trips. Suddenly, rain thundered on the roof. Kamachi ran upstairs to move the sacks of grain from their field before they were lashed wet. She was tired when she came back. Not that she could rest. Early the next morning, the family was going to Sivagangai, for a programme. That meant packing all the gear; travelling for three hours, make-up for two, and then the dancing. She would return home that night. It sounded extraordinary. For Kamachi, it was just another day in the life of a folk dancer.
This article is part of the series ‘Vanishing Livelihoods of Rural Tamil Nadu’ and is supported under NFI National Media Award 2015.
aparna.m.karthikeyan@gmail.com
