The Eyes Have It

Niyogi Books

Price: Rs 2,495

Pages: 196

One has grown up with the art of the Chakyars,known and spelt then as Koodiyattam and now as Kutiyattam. In the early 1970s,one travelled to the main koothambalams (or theatres) where this ancient Sanskrit theatre was performed in temple courtyards in Thrissur,Iranjalkuda,Guruvayoor,Chennagur and others. The form was hardly known even within Kerala. There were never more than 50 people in the audience. Two main aspects stopped it from being appreciated widely: Sanskrit,which few knew well enough,and the rigidity of its seating arrangements. Only Brahmins could sit inside the koothambalams and all others,including VIPs,had to sit outside and watch the night-long performance through slits in the wooden walls. That was in the Seventies.

I remember going to the homes of two surviving masters of the form. Mani Madhav Chakyar,then the seniormost living guru of Koodiyattam,regaled us with a special netra-abhinaya performance in which the dance is just about emoting with the eyes. For two hours,he could show you a forest scene with his eyes. And Ammanur came to meet us at a guest house in Iranjalkuda,so humble were they. All these memories come flooding in as I review this compilation,which is about Margi,a recent entrant to Kathakali and Koodiyattam,and an institution that came up in the 1980s. The book captures that slice of history,focussing on the last 30 years of Margis work,the brainchild of a maverick character called Appukuttan Nair,raconteur,scholar,and jack of many Kerala trades and tricks.

Sudha Gopalakrishnan is a devoted student of the dance forms of Kerala and has compiled a useful work. In her introduction,she states the background to the book and its limited appeal. Yet,the book is a good reference to what has happened to an ancient art form inflicted by modern interventions and how,through push and luck,it got the intangible cultural heritage (ICH) tag from the Unesco.

Gopalakrishnan has done a good job but Niyogi,the printer-publisher,has not. The book is designed haphazardly (the cover images are unappealing and unrepresentative of the forms) and the pages are bound badly. Captions too do not do justice.

Koodiyattam drew the interest of many serious researchers,who came from all over the world to study and document it. It would have helped contextualise the fortunes of the form. An art form of this great antiquity cannot be the result of one individual but of collective forces.

The works of Asvaghosa,Bhasa,Sudraka,Kalidasa,and Harsha among others form the bedrock of these plays. The liberties a Vidushaka,the jester,could take,including digs at kings and eminent citizens,was a ploy to express social issues and concern. Koodiyattam is a mood-building dance art. The performance would begin after dinner and continue till the wee hours of the morning. Now,a two-hour performance is considered full-length! Times have changed but devotees like Gopalakrishnan remain. The author has an eye for research and writes well,there is poetry in her description,a true rasika.