An expert in Kerala’s traditional performing art form, Kathakali, was conversing with his team members in Telugu. The team members too reply in Telugu but soon switch to Malayalam and Sanskrit. They all belong to four families of Paruthippully village who are still keeping alive the glove puppetry theatre named pava Kathakali or puppet Kathakali, against heavy odds.
“We speak Telugu at home because our families migrated from Renigunta in Andhra Pradesh to Palakkad centuries ago. My ancestors, known as Aandipandarams, came here to perform the Tamil folk drama Aryamaala as a puppet show. Later, sensing Kathakali’s popularity here, they carved Kathakali figures, studied the text, and shaped it to make it their own art form,” puppet Kathakali’s living legend K.C. Ramakrishnan Pandaram told The Hindu . Ramakrishnan still wanders with his team through the country roads of Palakkad, Thrissur, and Malappuram districts, holding Kathakali’s pacha, kathi and kari characters on their fingers.
The art form, which is fast fading away, had contributed a lot towards popularising Kathakali. Earlier, the performers were scattered across Palakkad. Now they are confined only to Paruthippully and adjacent Kodumbu villages.
Though popular in central Kerala, puppet Kathakali started gaining attention in the 1960s when art appreciator Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay happened to see two such puppets in a museum in Thrissur. To revive it, she sought the help of documentation officer Govind Vidyarthi of the Sangeet Natak Akademi to make a 16mm film on it. Though pava Kathakali now has numerous stages in India and abroad, only the small troupe of Ramakrishnan is keeping it alive.
Poor patronage
“It is not easy. You have to be an expert both in Kathakali and puppetry. Because of poor patronage from the State government, we are struggling to recruit youngsters,” said Ramakrishnan. “The Bharathapuzha basin used to be a fertile ground for many an art forms including, pava Kathakali. Efforts to revive the dying river also must include steps to promote this art form,” said Gopinath Parayil of Blue Yonder responsible tourism initiative that supports the artists in the field.
