One night, as a charged crowd witnessed the kattaikoothu Draupadi Thirumanam somewhere near Thiruvannamalai, a lady with a child on her hip walked backstage to be blessed by Draupadi. She believed Draupadi was there in flesh and bone in the village. She had sung and danced and had cursed Duryodhana minutes before on stage. “I blessed her,” says G. Suresh who played Draupadi that day. In that moment, when he walks off the stage, his energy spent and ears ringing with the lines, Suresh says he forgets who he really is. Kattaikoothu often does this to its performers. The members of Arulmigu Srimandaveli Amman Nadaga Mandram talk about their journey on the sidelines of the Mylapore Festival.
A form of therukoothu, kattaikoothu weaves in song, dance, and music into a narrative; the actors, with costumes and props made of kattai or wood, perform without mikes on stages that are mostly village squares and mud-plastered grounds adjacent to temples. A kattaikoothu theatre company travels from one village to another on invitation. Performances take place at night, when the moon comes out to cast its silvery glow on the mirror-studded costumes.
T.P. Durai, a teacher and advisor, has been performing koothu for 40 years. His team, which consists of 18 men from villages around Thiruvannamalai, is known for its performance of the Mahabharata .
“We are busy for about 210 nights a year,” says the 59-year-old. His team travels to various villages in Arakkonam, Vellore, Thiruvannamalai, and Kanchipuram that have temples for Draupadi and celebrate a yearly 18 or 24-day festival. “Our gurus have consolidated the Mahabharata into 24 parts. We cut it short depending on our pay and the number of days we are asked to perform,” he explains.
Each person in his team is adept at playing certain roles. Perumal is known for his performance of Arjuna while Suresh plays the all-time favourite, Draupadi. “But all of us are trained to play every character,” says Perumal. “The night is our day and the day is our night,” says Suresh.
“A play begins at 10 p.m. and goes on till 7 a.m. or sometimes 1 p.m. Once it is over, we eat and sleep till the next performance,” he adds. Suresh observes that if they do not get at least eight hours of sleep during the day, they “cannot utter a word the next day”. “We have to shout ourselves hoarse, you see. There are no mikes and our voices should carry to the 1,000 people in the audience. Sometimes, there can be even 10,000 pairs of eyes watching us,” explains Durai.
Kattaikoothu, unlike popular belief, is only growing by the day. Durai says that he is keen to rope youngsters into the art form. Many of his team members are trained at P. Rajagopal’s Kattaikkuttu Gurukulam at Kanchipuram. Among them is Gopinath who is also pursuing a Master’s in Computer Science. “I am in college from 8.30 a.m. to 1.30 p.m. and join my team afterwards,” he says.
The pay is moderate and practising the art form puts tremendous strain on the body. Performers get to spend little time with their families and are unable to maintain their fields, if they own any. Which is perhaps why many in Durai’s team are farm hands on days when they are not booked. “All of this doesn’t bother me,” says Suresh. “I enjoy myself when I’m doing koothu and the fame it earns me.”
The fascinating aspect of kattaikoothu is how deeply it affects the audience. As much as the actors are venerated as Draupadi and Dharma, they are cursed when they play Duryodhana. “They’ll say ‘paavi!' (sinner) look at him torture our mother Draupadi,” smiles Durai. There are also several beliefs associated with the theatre form. “It’s believed that childless couples will beget a child if they watch the koothu Arjunan Thavam ,” explains Suresh.
Some villages build 100-foot figures of gods and goddesses out of palm trees for their festivals. The kattaikoothu is performed during the day on just one occasion — when Duryodhana is killed during the war. The entire village gathers to witness the scene they’ve been waiting for. A huge statue representing Duryodhana will be reclined on the stage.
“People bathe and come on an empty stomach to witness his death,” says Suresh.
“At the end of the performance, they return to their homes to bathe again, a common practice after mourning. They believe a death has happened in their village.”
