Any visitor to the East Nada of Sree Padmanabhaswamy Temple would have heard him, and perhaps also seen him, playing on his kaliveena songs immortalised by Mohamed Rafi, Kishore Kumar, K.J. Yesudas, and many others. Shajahan has been creating melody out of kaliveena , a seemingly simple musical instrument made with a reed stick, a clay pot, and a bow.
Years ago, it was his father who used to make and sell the toy Veenas. “We have been here for the past 54 years,” says Shajahan. As he puts it, the kaliveena that he sells was invented by his father Babul Sahib, who used the normally used coconut shell with clay pot which he found equally good at generating the sound variations that normal rendering of musical compositions called for.
Initially, he had made a Sitar by fixing a stick of reed to a clay pot and tying thin metal wires onto it. But, on playing it with a bow of screw pine fibre (Pandanus), he found the voice rough. Young Sahib approached a famous violinist of the time and learnt from him that applying amber jelly onto the fibre can help improve the tonal value of his contraption.
That led him to making the kaliveena with which his son earns his living now. Shajahan, second of his father’s six children, inherited his father’s passion for music and innovation and has been selling the kaliveena at festival venues across the State ever since.
“I spent two years in Saudi Arabia as the keeper of an orange farm, but my mind was filled with plenty of unmade kaliveenas . All through my work, I was planning new songs, new models and new venues for selling our kaliveena ,” says Shajahan. None of his three daughters – all married and settled down – knows to model or play the kaliveena .
“The new generation lacks that passion towards an unyielding art. Such a skill can earn you no fame or money,” says Shajahan, woefully anticipating the extinction of a skill he had acquired and an art he had pursued all his life.
It takes nine whole days for Shajahan to make a hundred kaliveenas . Clay pots are specially made for the purpose at Menankulam. Reed sticks are bought from Kottur forests. Screw pine fibre is brought from Tamil Nadu.
His wife, Abida, a keeper of all newspaper reports about her husband, joyfully smiles at her husband’s passionate pursuit. “He could have been rich had he commercialised it. But you cannot have perfection and full dedication if your motive shifts to money. We married away our kids with whatever we earned selling kaliveenas . Now, all that we need is peace of mind and a little fun,” she says.
