The Hindu : Kerala News : Lack of facilities puts students to hardships

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jan 17, 2005

Kerala

Kerala

Lack of facilities puts students to hardships

By K. Santhosh

TIRUR, JAN. 16. An event described as one of the biggest of its kind in Asia, bringing together thousands of school students, parents, teachers and artistes, is being held in a town with only 18 small hotels. Such ironies and contradictions are the stuff that the 45th State Schools Youth Festival, which concludes here on Monday, is made of.

Outside the Boy's High School Ground, huge cut-outs of the Education Minister, E.T. Mohammed Basheer, have been installed by the Muslim Youth League (MYL) activists.

``Thankyou Mr. Basheer, for bringing the youth festival to Tirur,'' the text inscribed on the visual reads. For this is Mr. Basheer's constituency. And party workers are straining every nerve to ensure that nothing goes wrong at the youth festival.

Number of participants

The high-school section of the festival has brought together 2,879 students from 520 schools. The Samskithotsavam (448 students from 153 schools), the festivals of the TTI (639 students from 112 institutions) and the PPTTI (196 students from 16 institutions) are being held simultaneously. The number of events being staged at 12 venues is 74 (high school), 28 (Samskrithotsavam), 21 (PPTTI) and 23 (TTI). Three to five judges decide the prizes for an event. The champions will be presented a 117-sovereign gold trophy. A sum of Rs. 2.6 lakhs has been distributed as prizes so far.

The students were put up at 10 schools across the town. ``I agree that the facilities at Tirur are limited. But we did our best to make the stay of the participants comfortable," claims C.K. Ahmed Kutty, convener, accommodation committee.

For judges and important guests, the committee had reserved rooms at hotels in the town and nearby Kottakkal. No arrangements, however, were made to put up mediapersons. About 400 media passes have been issued and there are reports that some of them had landed in wrong hands. Despite all the talk by the Education Minister about developing IT, computers are not available at the media cell to file reports. ``Clearly, there is no media plan,'' a scribe was heard saying.

Congress allegation

The local Congress leaders allege that the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) has hijacked the show. Oppana, Mappilappattu, Daffumuttu and Aravamuttu drew huge crowds. All the dance events, drama and mimicry have been well attended. Unlike musicians, who presented cliched stuff (the light and classical music contests were uninspiring and predictable), the dancers have experimented with new themes. The Bharathanatyam performers danced lively ``varnams'' and the Kuchipudi dancers came up with exciting ``tharangams.''

The manner in which youth festivals promote the traditional performing arts of Kerala deserves praise. But for such an event, how many children would have learnt kathakali, chakyarkoothu and thayambaka at a time when traditional arts are being swallowed by pop culture?

Bands of musicians, dance teachers, make-up artistes and costumiers hanging about the green rooms point to the huge money that goes into creating young celebrities. More so, when a participant takes part in several events, with an eye on the Kalathilakam and Kalapratibha titles. The competition is often between teachers and dance institutions. The fierceness of the tussle at the festival is apparently not going to abate, even with the introduction of the grading system in the SSLC examination, which would stop the grant of grace marks to festival winners.

No serious performers

``Majority of the young dancers in the festival are not serious. We may have had a Manju Warrier or Navya Nair emerging from the dance contests and making it big in filmdom. On the other hand, how many Chitra Viswewarans and Malavika Sarukkais have such festivals created?'' asks a critic.

A means of living

The community of dance teachers, however, say that youth festivals help them make a living. Notions of high art cannot, obviously, co-exist with the realities of the culture industry.

The software developed by T. J. Grigory, a teacher at Don Bosco School, Irinjalakuda, which is used to maintain statistics and conduct the festival smoothly, deserves praise. This is the fifth year the festival is using the programme, and it reduces the workload of officials and ensures accuracy. Apart from the main event, the competitions at 14 revenue districts and 161 sub-districts too use this programme.

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