The whooshing rains set the pitch for the teenager Kizhoot Nandanan when he blew the kurumkuzhal at a string of minor shows that entire monsoon. Paradoxical, given that such melam ensembles are typically a summer feature in his native Kerala.
“These shows also worked as practice sessions. Our small band would halt at select houses and perform briefly,” says the kurumkuzhal artiste, recalling the ritualistic para processions from old temples south of Thrissur back in 1983. “I’d be the lone piper in the mini team that had drums, trumpets, a gong and the conch. We’d trail the oracle representing the deity... along roads, by-lanes and open farms.”
The first chance
Nandanan was 16 when he got his first such ceremonial assignment, courtesy an invitation from ilathalam cymbalist Maniyamparambil Mani. “One needed only minimum ease with the kurumkuzhal. That’s all I had then,” he says. “The biggest draw, though, was the food.”
The feasts laid out during those three Malayalam months starting with Edavam (mid-May) were a happy interlude for the boy from a poor family. His father, Velappaya Unni Nair, was a kurumkuzhal player, too. The earnings were meagre. And his mother, Kamalakshi Amma, doubled up as a daily-wager.
Once, when his father was teaching Nandanan the basics of kurumkuzhal, he found that the boy was not following a preliminary lesson well. “Hard came a slap on my thigh,” he recalls. “I ran away from home. My mother was working in the paddy field and she saw me and chased me down and brought me back.” Back home, he told his mother that he was running away to jump before a train. “My father’s punishment was rare, but I took it to heart,” says Nandanan.
His impulsive reaction notwithstanding, he soon did get the exercise right. “Blowing the pipe requires strong lung power. Father had given me a papaya straw. I had to dunk it in a vessel of water and blow into it non-stop. For that you need to simultaneously inhale at intervals. When there were any breaks in the bubbles forming in the water, father got angry.”
Kurumkuzhal
A couple of years later, Nandanan began to accompany his father to temple festivals. As a beginner, the boy found his slot at one end of the long row of pipers in the large percussion melams called panchari and pandi.
Then, at 18, Nandanan got a break. A couple of senior pipers failed to turn up at a venue in Anthikad near his home. “You stand opposite me in the middle,” said chenda veteran Peruvanam Appu Marar, the chief percussionist for that night’s three-hour melam. “I will give you the signals for the turn of chapters. Fix your eyes on mine.”
Overcoming his initial nervousness, Nandanan passed the litmus test. A pleased Marar referred him to kurumkuzhal exponent Kombath Kuttan Panicker, and the youngster became Panicker’s disciple at his house near Peruvanam, the home of melam.
“The first half-year was spent solely in singing. The seven basic Carnatic notes and the related saptaswara patterns,” says Nandanan. Panicker, who was also a nagaswaram player, over the next three monsoon semesters, taught Nandanan the nuances of the two-reed kurumkuzhal with its wooden body that segues into a brass bell-bottom. Spanning 12 to 18 inches, it is similar to the Hindustani shehnai in looks and timbre.
From Panicker (1929-2011), Nandanan learnt the solo kuzhalpattu concert presented customarily for one hour before the illustrious melams. A piece akin to ragam-tanam-pallavi is central to their school. Often tuned to the weighty Kamboji or Bhairavi ragas, it is presented after an invocatory Gambhira Nattai number and concludes with a breezy mangalam in Madhyamavati. Late scholar L.S. Rajagopalan notes that the kurumkuzhal’s eight holes are distanced in such a way that the instrument sounds like the Harikamboji parent scale of south Indian classical music.
The pivotal role
Nandanan was just 20 when he debuted at the grand Thrissur Pooram, Kerala’s grandest. And since 2010, he has been the key piper for the pivotal Paramekavu temple at its annual event, anchoring ensembles of 150 artistes with the acumen of a Western symphony orchestra’s impresario. Frontline melam leader Peruvanam Satheesan Marar lauds Nandanan’s conducting capabilities in tandem with the main chenda drummer. “His sophistication and solemnity spreads to fellow pipers,” he says.
Life has been disrupted by Covid-19, but Nandanan finds comfort in the Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Akademi award that he has just received. Does he have big dreams? “No,” he says, from his house in Peramangalam, 10 km north of Thrissur. “Just a worry-free life for my wife and two daughters.”
The writer is a keen follower of Kerala’s performing arts.
