At his demure apartment in Poonkunnam, Thrissur, Kathakali’s own Kalamandalam Balasubramanian sits next to a stack of documents. Quite a few among them are new attakathas (Kathakali scripts) waiting for the veteran’s attention. If any excite him, Balasubramanian will delve into it and draw out from its skeletal narrative full-blooded performances. “I am performing a new attakatha Shunashepa Charitam based on the story of Harischandra. We also begin composing the ragam and talam for Radha Madhavam written based on the Ashtapati written by Vinod from Dubai soon,” Balasubramanian reels out his immediate plans.
At 59, having spent 42 of those at Kerala Kalamandalam, first as a pupil, then a teacher and finally as the Principal, Balasubramanian ranks foremost among a generation of performers who were fortunate to imbibe from masters like Kalamandalam Ramankutty Nair and Kalamandalam Gopi, and yet were able to lend a distinct signature to their art.
Balasubramanian is incredibly versatile, equally at home with the formidable pacha (noble) parts of Arjuna, Krishna, Bhima or Nala or the pathos of the kathi (negative) roles — Parasuram or Ravana. Post-retirement, performances have ruled his daily chart. He donned colours for over 150 stages last season.
His effortlessness with roles of all kinds can be attributed to the rigorous training and discipline at Kalamandalam. But Balasubramanian admits he was not besotted by Kathakali as a young boy. For the lay men, Kathakali is still the tough art to crack. For practitioners too, it is a tale of love that takes its time to blossom. “My parents had both learnt Kathakali and Carnatic music. They took me to Kalamandalam when I was 13-years-old. At that age hardly anyone comes to Kathakali because he is obsessed with it,” says Balasubramanian.
Student years
For a teenager, homesickness was the obstacle to combat. Discipline remained the unwritten philosophy. “We had to sign a bond for six years. Further, someone had to stand surety for Rs. 2,000. Then we got a stipend of Rs. 40 a month,” he remembers.
The first few years tested the candidate’s mettle. “We were woken up at 4 a.m. for the abhyasam (exercise). The massage was painful but necessary to carve out the perfect body of a performer,” says Balasubramanian.
He is a staunch believer in the slow and steady development of skills. According to him, a performer who has gone through the different stages of performance systematically — from kuttitharam to edatharam and finally to the adhyaavasanam parts — will always be a notch above one who has gone through the preliminary parts in a hurry. It is the early parts that season an artiste, he says and adds only the ones with perfect beginning go on to be masters.
Balasubramanian realised how intricately his destiny was entwined with Kathakali during the years of training at Kalamandalam. “Once your arangetram is over, you would never want to leave the institution. That is the only world you know. I realised Kathakali is my life and my life’s sustenance was through it,” says Balasubramanian.
Maintaining balance
Despite years under the tutelage of masters, Balasubramanian is uncluttered in his mind on what to imbibe and what to create on his own. Perhaps, it is this clarity that takes him to a different zone as a performer. “Art is imitation. As a student you do what the teacher says. But what you are imitating should be just the framework. One should not imitate the asan’s personal style. One has to fill that slot with talent. I have never imitated the individual characteristics or the life of my teachers,” says Balasubramanian.
Early performances were dominated by female roles. But the stately adhyaavasanam roles were what he desired. Soon the grandeur of pacha and the tragedy of kathi came seeking him. As a performer he traverses extremes in a matter of days, celebrating nobility on one stage and performing tragedy on another. “ Kathi roles are physically taxing. Pacha , on the other hand, is more about the mind. The stress is on the facial expressions,” he explains.
Balasubramanian’s experiments with new attakathas have mostly won appreciation. Those like his Mahishasuramardini have been talked about too. But at heart he still swears by the classical stories. “There is often nothing new in terms of elements or subjects in the new attakathas . Most of them do not go beyond a handful of performances. An exception is Mali’s Karnasapadam . But it narrates the touching tale of Kunti and Karna and the success of the show is also the triumph of its music,” says Balasubramanian.
Music matters
While he may not gush about the new performance texts, he certainly does so with the experimentation in Kathakali music. “Kathakali’s growth is through its music. Even when (Kalamandalam Neelakantan) Nambisan asan brought in changes there was criticism. Music is especially paramount in performances that are based on bhava rather than nritta ,” he says.
Kathakali has taken Balasubramanian around the world. He has performed and held lecture demonstrations in a range of countries, from Poland and Hungary to Japan and Thailand. He is intently aware that Kathakali’s popularity abroad gave it a new lease of life. “Kathakali started going abroad as complete theatre forms from 1967. Performances taken there were capsules lasting two-and-a-half hours. Now, the level of appreciation has evolved to such an extent that full-night performances are a hit,” he says.
Though the traditional night-long performances are slowly getting back into the Kerala milieu, Balasubramanian says Kathakali is still a struggle when it comes to an artiste’s survival. “Though Kalamandalam has moved from the gurukulam system to that of the university there is still no solution when it comes to job opportunities for the vesham students,” he mourns.
In his years as a Kathakali practitioner, Balasubramanian has come across contemporaries and students of all kinds — ones who have unabashedly made a business of Kathakali and others who have stuck to its core values. “Those who made a business of it got Lakshmi and those who worshipped it as art got Saraswaty.” But the twain seldom meet.
