The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : `Kazhai koothu' artists, a community in transition

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Aug 16, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

`Kazhai koothu' artists, a community in transition

K. Manikandan

Children of migrants from Gujarat slowly giving up on tradition

STREET-SIDE ACROBATS: ` Kazhai Koothadu' artists who do stunts in wayside circuses, originally hail from Gujarat. — PHOTO:A MURALITHARAN.

TAMBARAM : Travelling around in motorised rickshaws that play the latest film tunes, they can hardly be missed in the suburbs. The `Kazhai Koothy' groups are renowned for their dances, acrobatics and risky stunts.

Children, youth and even elders do tightrope walking, perform somersaults and fall from a height. They do this for a living.

Residents of Kazhai Koothu Nagar at Medavakkam near Tambaram — a locality housing about 60 families of these artistes — hail from Gujarat, but cannot recall their exact place of nativity nor what their forefathers' vocation was.

"All we know is that we have been in Tamil Nadu after we left Gujarat 300 years ago after a famine," says K. Babuji, an elder at Kazhai Koothu Nagar.

The families have been residing at Medavakkam for about 30 years. "Originally it began with six houses; now there are a little more than 50, half of them built by the government," says Ramoji, whose abdomen is criss-crossed with surgical scars, the legacy of his injuries.

While adults and even elders are fit enough, only the children are made to dance and perform the stunts. "We feel guilty about it. But then, only when children perform do people give us money," he adds.

For a long time, these artistes were focussed on earning their daily bread, the reason for not acquiring other skills or even learning to read and write. They speak `kachcha baasha' — a mix of Indian languages, including Tamil, but predominantly Gujarati and Hindi.

It was only about a decade ago that they realised the importance of education and started sending their children to schools. Today, all the 52 children of school-going age are attending schools nearby. Chandru is the first youth from the community to complete his B.Com from Madras Christian College, Tambaram; the graduate is hoping to find a good job. Yet, even the children who attend school perform during weekends, as it is their only source of income.

The government has provided a television set for them and some of them have mobile phones. But otherwise, they possess very little. Periasammabhai, an elderly women, says that when they marry, the couple is given a couple of drums and plates to survive. "We do not demand dowry. We do not throw a feast for the marriage. And grooms have to look after their wives' parents life-long," she points out.

The artistes want little from the government: just proper housing and water facilities and most importantly, community certificates so that they are eligible for reservation in education and jobs.

Children in high school have stopped performing as they are serious about life after school and college. Rajendran and Bhaskar, children of S. Jignoji and Ranibhai, are studying at Corley Higher Secondary School, East Tambaram and want to pursue management and engineering respectively. "All of us have struggled and all we want to do is to lead a quality life like everyone else," says Rajendran, reflecting the feelings of the new generation.

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