Ardent devotee of Kathakali
PREMA MANMADHAN
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Kalamandalam Shiju Kumar wears many hats. But his favourite is that of a Kathakali performer.
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SPEAKING EYES: Kalamandalam Shiju Kumar. PHOTO. MAHESH HARILAL
With people like Kalamandalam Shiju Kumar around, the traditional arts of Kerala will surely live on forever. This young man vows that he will not give up Kathakali, whatever the commercial constraints are. The Kathakali programmes at a Devi temple near his house introduced him to the world of larger-than-life Puranic characters. When he was in Class Nine, he took the decision to join Kalamandalam.
Story of Othello
Today, he is writing his second Kathakali script, the story of `Othello,' complete with Kathakali padams. Only, the hero of the piece will be called Veerabahu and Desdemona is Suvarna. Why? "It feels odd for names like Othello and Desdemona to figure in Kathakali padams, so I have changed the names to suit our ambience," says Shiju Kumar.
It is not the first time that he has attempted such a Herculean task.
His maiden venture, `Ekalavyan' has been staged more than 20 times all over Kerala. "I wrote it when I was 19 years old, during my last year at Kalamandalam," says Shiju, who studied the six-year course on `Vesham.' His teachers, especially Kalamandalam Rajashekharan, helped him do it.
"I saw a Kathaprasangam on Ekalavyan and the character so moved me that I decided to write a Kathakali script. Unless the main character evokes sympathy in the audience, it will fail. This character was tailor-made for Kathakali," he says. He went about it the traditional way. First, he read the story in the Mahabharatha and then got down to choosing the scenes to be enacted. The padams and slokas are traditionally in Sanskrit and Manipravalam. He stuck to the practice. As a student, he wrote poetry and often attended poetry workshops. His poetic bent of mind came in handy. His teachers at Kalamandalam chose the ragas and helped shape his creation.
`Ekalavyan'
The first performance of `Ekalavyan' was staged at the Koothambalam of Kalamandalam in 1997 in the presence of veteran writers and artistes. It was indeed a proud moment for the young artiste. Later it was performed at Guruvayoor.
Shiju got a chance to perform at the Taipeh India festival, recently. He was a part of a team that staged a `Narakasura Vadham' at 25 places there. Having been trained in Vesham, Shibu does whatever Kathakali veshams he is offered. He does `pacha,' `kari' and `chuvanna thadi.' But the fine arts do not guarantee a stable job or enough income to live comfortably.
So Shibu does a lot of other jobs, but all relating to art directly or indirectly. He wrote the script for a documentary on Koodiyattom, produced by the Vyloppilly Samskriti Bhavan recently. He is also involved in the film society movement in his native village of Thachonam, near Kallara.
In the new Sarat-directed movie, `Sheelabathy,' he kept the accounts for the production department.
Artistes who have no patrons as in old times or godfathers as in the present, gallantly eke out a livelihood on their own, but few stick to an art with such passion as Kalamandalam Shiju Kumar.
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