A wail for their survival
RAMYA KANNAN
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Patru, Sellama, Annam and Anjalai are practitioners of Oppari, the Tamil folk tradition that grieves the death of men through story and song.
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From Pazhaverkadu in the northern coast of Chennai to Mahabalipuram in the south, the women are possibly the only Oppari singers along the coast. Their business is only as good as their reputation.
Livelihood issues: They are not worried about an art form but about their own survival. Photo: S. Thanthoni
AS the evening spray blows in from the bay, four old women, wrinkled and shrunken, sit on a rickety bench at the corner just where the sands of the beach meet the tar of the road.
On cue, one of them sets up a wail moaning the loss of a fisherman, swallowed by the sea. The other three, leaning on each other, follow at a lower pitch, missing a couple of beats before they too start wailing.
As they sing, you can see their blackened tongues. Whatever teeth remain are stained with the juice of betel leaves.
The funeral four
If their community, the fisher folk, were to put a tag on this band, they would probably be called the "Funeral Four". The four women — Patru, Sellama, Annam and Anjalai — are among the few proponents of the traditional Tamil folk form, the "Oppari".
The four women from the Ayodhya Kuppam fishing village, in Chennai, are professional wailers — they go from funeral to funeral, beating their breasts, singing story-songs and grieving the death of men.
Patru, the oldest at 78, is the leader of the "Funeral Four". She carries an excellent repertoire of "Oppari" songs in her mind, "... may be a 1000, may be even more," and has taught the other women in her team. "While she has taught us some songs, we have learnt to sing Opparis by observing others when we were young. It is quite an art — to sing the right songs at the right pitch and beat your breast in tune," Sellama says.
Word of mouth
She seems to be the logistics manager of the group, apart from doing the talking for the bunch too. From Pazhaverkadu in the northern coast of Chennai to Mahabalipuram in the south, the women are possibly the only Oppari singers along the coast. "The Oppari is sung only when men die. These men must have been married and have surviving wives. Only then do they merit an Oppari," Sellama clarifies.
Their business then is only as good as their reputation. People hear of these Oppari women only through word of mouth. "One family tells another and so on and we are called to more houses. However, since it is only us in the fishing villages of Chennai, we get called every time there is a death on the coast. Sometimes we go into the town as well, but not much," Anjalai says, spitting out a wad of betel leaves on the sand.
As for hours of work and the frequency of performance, they are unpredictable, just as death sometimes can be. In "good" months, there are maybe three-four calls, and in bad months, none. The charges depend on the distance the wailers have to travel and the capacity of the family paying for them. "If it is a poor family, then we charge about Rs.700-800 and a more affluent family will have to pay about Rs.1500 for the four of us."
Invitations come on the day of the death, before the funeral, and again, according to the custom of the community, on the 16th day. The women are sometimes taken to the village where the death has occurred, but often have to find their own way. They sit in a group, around the body, with the widow at the head, and set up their keening ritual.
It is only as they sing that the ritual "widowing" of the wife is started. "We sing from about 10 a.m. till late in the afternoon, at least a 100 songs on every occasion, each telling seven or eight stories," the leader of the team, Patru, breaks her silence.
As they sing, they beat their breasts — the Oppari is not complete without the latter, according to their tradition.
Does it not hurt — this self-flagellation? "Of course, there is pain. Sometimes, much pain. But what do we do? This is our profession, we must sing and beat our breast to earn money," Sellama says, holding her hand against her chest.
"Often, we have had to rub ointment and pour warm water on our breasts so that the pain goes away," Anjalai adds.
For Sellama, a diabetic, it can get even worse; she has to take injections when the pain intensifies. "Not that I can stop even if I want to. Who will buy my medicines and what about food?" Though she seems more energetic than the rest, remembered pain seems to come alive in her rheumy eyes, even as Sellama talks about how it hurts.
Anjalai, meanwhile squats on the sand again, her legs weak with standing for some minutes; "I am getting old, you see," she says apologetically. And the lack of an heir to carry the legacy forward does not bother them as much as you fancy it would, because for them it is about survival — not of an art form, but of the artist.
India Beats features stories of the unusual, the exotic and the extraordinary.
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