The Hindu : Kerala News : Kathakali veterans relive younger days on stage

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Apr 12, 2005

Kerala

Kerala

Kathakali veterans relive younger days on stage

NEW DELHI, APRIL 11. Thirty-two years after they shared the stage as budding artistes, two senior Kathakali dancers came together to perform the same classical story-play— this time in reverse roles.

It was on April 13, 1973 that Sadanam Balakrishnan and Narippatta Narayanan Namboodiri performed the famous `Kalyana Sougandhikam' in a Delhi temple as Hanuman and Bhima respectively. Last night, they again portrayed the focal theme of deep brotherly love between the

two Mahabharata characters with Balakrishnan cast in the role of the Pandava prince and Narippatta playing the monkey-god.

The three-and-a-half-hour programme, staged at Kerala House under the auspices of the `Thotayam' Kathakali Club, thus evoked a sense of nostalgia for the two leading actors, much to the appreciation of the audience.

"I am overwhelmed. This is sort of a homecoming," gushed 55-year-old Narippatta back in the greenroom even as Balakrishnan, his senior and later tutor at their alma mater Sadanam Kathakali

Akademi in Palakkad, praised him for an involved performance.

Balakrishnan, now 61 and Principal of the International Centre for Kathakali (ICK) in the capital, has been a Delhiite since 1974, five years after completing his scholarship at the Peroor-based

Sadanam near Ottappalam, where Narippatta currently is a senior guru. Both of them had their tutelage mainly under the renowned Keezhpadam Kumaran Nair.

It was in 1973, during Balakrishnan's stint as a junior instructor at Sadanam that the troupe came to Delhi for a string of performances. One of the story-plays then was `Kalyana Sougandhikam,' staged at the now-defunct Ayyappa temple at Munirka in south Delhi.

"We had come over there under the leadership of Sadanam founder-secretary K. Kumaran (who died last month at the age of 84)," recounted Balakrishnan, a native of Taliparamba in Kannur district.

That cultural trip to the capital happened to change the profile of Balakrishan as he was given an offer to take charge of the ICK which was then lying closed for more than a year. Following an

appointment letter that came later from a senior Malayali bureaucrat who headed the administrative wing of the organisation, Balakrishnan joined the ICK in January 1974.

While Balakrishnan's performances back in Kerala had largely remained occasional since then, Narippatta had always been in his home State but for occasional performances at the national capital.

The two artistes have on-off been performing together, though this was the first time in more than three decades that they were cast in `Kalyana Sougandhikam,' penned by 17th-century playwright

Kottayathu Thampuran.

Young Sadanam Srinathan donned the role of Panchali in yesterday's programme. The other artistes were Sadanam Radhakrishnan, Kalabharati Ganesan, Kalamandalam Rajesh Menon (music), Kalamandalam Unnikrishnan, Cherutazham Kunhiraman (chenda), Sadanam Murukajyoti,

Parassinikkadavu Manoj (maddalam), Kalamandalam Kunhikrishnan (make-up) and Sadanam Govindan (costume).

- UNI

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