Doing justice to the traditional art form

KOLLAM: Amidst the anxiously waiting participants behind the stage at SN Women’s College here for the Ottanthullal competition of the Kerala University Youth Festival, stood a father and his two daughters devoid of any worries. When her turn came Nimisha R, a first-year law student of Government Law College, Thiruvananthapuram, gently touched her father’s hands and stepped onto the stage along with her sister and singer Manisha R.  It was a spirited performance for the packed audience, one which broke the hours-long monotony of the contest.   Nimisha’s play touched the evils crippling the present-day Kerala from alcoholism to the alarmingly increasing crimes against the womenfolk. When she ended the story-telling with a call to the society ‘’not to allow any more Soumyas to suffer’’ the audience received it with a huge applause.  ‘’We are not here to compete, we just wanted to give a message to all that this art form has a greater role than just repeating oft-repeated themes from the epics and puranas,’’ Nimisha said after the performance.  Nimisha and her sister, a Kathaprasangam artiste, conduct professional programmes.   ‘’We have presented programmes on many a stage from temple festivals to national-level cultural programmes,’’ said Manisha.   Nimisha, who first practiced ‘Ganapathi Prathal’ for her performance, changed the theme after her father Kalappila Ramchandran, an amateur poet, inspired her to do justice to the original purpose for which the art form was born.  ‘’I told her to forget about the contest and the prizes. As professional artistes, they should stand for art, prizes are only secondary,’’ a proud Ramachandran said holding his daughters in his arms.   Ramachandran, a taxi driver, said he and his wife Sulochana gave all support to their daughters in their artistic pursuits. The lyrics for the performance were penned by Ramchandran and Nimisha danced to the vocal accompaniment of her sister.   Kalappila Raveendran played the mridangam, Sukumaran Veliyam on harmonium and Vasudevan Veliyam played the cymbals.