When temples in Kerala began to cancel festivals around mid-March due to Covid-19 lockdown, Madiyan Radhakrishna Marar’s summer engagements as a percussionist came to a halt. Forced to stay indoors, he decided to use the time to work on his dream project.
In those three months, just ahead of the monsoon, Radhakrishna devised symbols for the sounds of the chenda. He gave the strikes on the drum a visual expression of universal intelligibility. The aim was to offer students a format to fall back on, especially if the language of instruction is alien.
“In this region, people don’t speak only Malayalam,” says Radhakrishna, who lives in Kanhangad, 50 km south of Karnataka. “ I have students in Udupi and Mangalore. I converse with them in Kannada. Classes have gone online, with Skype being the connecting tool. Often, audio follow-ups are over WhatsApp. Not all learners can hear all the syllables properly or uniformly,” says the 51-year-old percussionist, who runs the Chenda Sarvavadya Kalasala.
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Creating the script
That’s when he sensed the urgency to translate the sounds of the ancient chenda into representative signs. “Hence my script. It primarily has five marks, one of which denotes the pause,” he points out, highlighting the script’s fool-proof quality. “The preparatory work lasted for two months. I tried several ways before arriving at a lipi that was to my satisfaction.” Radhakrishna shared his work with his peers for their feedback.
His guru Sadanam Vasudevan and maestro Kalamandalam Prabhakara Poduval were impressed.
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Prabhakara Poduval terms the script a healthy revolution. “It needs to be popularised,” says the septuagenarian, who hails from Palakkad district’s Malamakkavu village known as the birthplace of tayambaka — the most individualistic of chenda concerts. Tayambaka, performed for nearly 90 minutes with assistance from bass chenda and cymbals, is what Radhakrishna has specialised in, in his career spanning four decades. He first played tayambaka as a 10-year-old at Vettekkorumakan temple in Balussery, Kozhikode district, after preliminary lessons from his father Kalaveedu Krishnankutty Marar.
Training process
Soon, he was sent to Thiruvananthapuram, where Vasudevan, a family friend, became his chenda guru. “I had gurukula training, staying with my master.” says Radhakrishna. He simultaneously attended a high school in the city.
When in Class 10, he went back to his village. That year (1984-85), he emerged as the tayambaka winner at the state-level youth festival, a first for Kasargod , a feat the district is yet to repeat.
Radhakrishna also gained knowledge about the melodious panchavadyam ensemble as his father initiated him into the timila. And he debuted with this slender drum at the Annapoorneswari temple in Cherukunnu, Kannur district. To gain proficiency, he spent an entire monsoon under Pallavoor Kunjukuttan. He also learnt to play the edakka.
Despite being trained in playing various percussion instruments, Radhakrishna is essentially a tayambaka exponent. “I owe a lot to certain arts specific to my region,” he says. The raga-based singing for the Yakshagana theatre has made him sensitive to the shruti (pitch) of the chenda. And Thidambu Nritham, where priests dance with the deity on their head to fast-paced chenda beats, has strengthened his percussive skills.
He developed new rhythmic cycles, adding novelty to tayambaka’s 150-year-old history. The central Navakooru segment, he presented in 2003, is one such innovation. The artiste, who was honoured by the Rajarajeswara Kshetram in Taliparamba last year, is currently working on a book titled Tayambaka Vilakku .
Timila player Mohanan Marar of Peruvaram in Ernakulam district says the late percussionist Chendamangalam Unnikrishnan tried to come up with symbols for the chenda sounds. “Finally, Radhakrishna has completed the task,” he says. “I wish the model all success.”
The writer is a keen follower of Kerala’s traditional arts.