There was a time not so long ago when anyone crossing the old iron bridge to Tripunithura would hear the strains of violins and the beats of mridangam. On their way they would have seen a group of young artists and sculptors honing their skills on the banks of the narrow river flowing quietly.
It was here that the famed RLV College of Music and Fine Arts once stood. The Shanti Niketan as the college was called spread across 84 cents of land with trees all around and three blocks of tiled buildings complete with a stage at the centre. The Puthen Bungalow, located adjacent to the college was an extension which housed the Fine Arts section where occasionally other departments conducted classes.
The college was established in the late 1930s by the then Maharaja of Cochin, Kerala Varma Midukkan Thampuran and his wife Lakshmikutty Nethyaramma. It started off in a small room and there were experts who trained women in stitching, kaikottikkali, painting and other skills. The intention was to impart learning to young women and also help older women utilise their leisure time fruitfully. This institution was named after the Maharaja’s daughter Radha and his wife Lakshmi. Once music was incorporated it got the name Radha Lakshmi Vilasam Academy.
The institution came under the control of the government of Kerala in 1956 and was renamed RLV Academy of Music and Fine Arts. In 1998, it was upgraded and affiliated to the Mahatma Gandhi University, Kottayam.
Space constraints following the addition of many new courses, lack of regular maintenance and the need for improved facilities forced the government to move the college to a new campus sometime in 2008. The land with its buildings was returned to the Cochin Royal Family.
The college celebrated its Platinum Jubilee in 2012 but amidst all the festivities and events the place where it all began was forgotten. The buildings, a valuable heritage, were pulled down and today the place is overrun by weeds. The plan envisaged by the Tripunithura Municipality to build an open-air auditorium and waterfront park has not taken off.
Many people, including the college’s most famous alumni K. J. Yesudas, were not happy that the place where it all began was not preserved. Speaking at the Platinum Jubilee celebrations and later to the media Yesudas did not hide his displeasure at the state of things.
Tripunithura, according to him, is a place that fills him with living memories and he always thought that if there was one place that did not change drastically it was this town. He is on record saying that he was “shocked to learn that the old RLV College buildings have been pulled down.” And he personally “would have loved to keep them undisturbed, as a heritage monument.”
The college has produced some illustrious students like Thiruvizha Jayashankar, Mayyanad Kesavan Namboodiri, Vaikom Vasudevan Namboodiri, Tripunithura N. Radhakrishnan and eminent ‘gurus’ like Nellai T. V. Krishnamurthy, Parassala B. Ponnammal, Mavelikkara R. Prabhakara Varma, Kalamandalam Krishnan Nair, Neyattinkara Vasudevan among others.
“I joined RLV College rather late in my life. By then I had a job and had also begun playing mridangam and ghatom professionally. In fact, I had played for a couple of concerts in the college even before I was a student. I was part of the first mridangam batch. We were four students, of which one dropped out. Parassala Ravi Sir was our ‘guru.’ I did the four-year Ganabushanam course and later the Ganapraveena at Swati Thirunal College of Music at Thiruvananthapuram as we did not have this course here,” recounts Tripunithura Radhakrishnan, who has the unique distinction of studying and teaching in this institution.
Looking back Radhakrishnan feels that the old college campus, with all its limitations, had a charm of its own. There was unlimited enthusiasm among the students. Though there were two blocks, one for music and the other for fine arts, it was united in life and action.
“The campus lacked common amenities like hostel, canteen and even adequate sanitary support. We had space constraints, only around 22 small classrooms when the actual requirement was much higher, the roofs leaked during rains but all this did not dampen our spirits. The classrooms were cramped but strangely none of us were disturbed by the sound from the other rooms. In the new building, when the chenda was sounded in one room we, in the nearby rooms, found it difficult to concentrate. This did not happen in the old campus. Scrapping the old courses for the sake of regular degrees and post-graduate degrees has somehow ended the long line of genuine performers,” Radhakrishnan opines.
RLV College of Music and Fine Arts has moved to a posh campus with state-of-the-art facilities. Good for the institution and for the students who get regular degrees and demand value for money in education.
But spare a thought for the old campus where the college grew in fame. The river flows on, crossing the iron bridge will never be the same again. The violins have ceased to play, the mridangam beats have stopped. Even the small tea shop that functioned from one of the rooms of the old building has shut shop. It is memory today, like most of the heritage buildings in the royal town of Tripunithura.
