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Tryst with tradition

The Malayali Manka Maran Muthu competition was a good attempt to go back to tradition

Photo: Mahesh Harilal

KERALA ATTIRE Dressed in their traditional best Photo: Mahesh Harilal

Beautifully attired in the cream and golden traditional Kerala saris, bejewelled in ornaments and hair decked with fresh jasmine, the young sylphs attempted to recreate the conventional silhouette of what constitutes a Kerala beauty. It was the scene of the Malayali Manka Maaran Muthu competition held as part of the Onam celebrations by Sensations, a programme aired on Surya TV. Giving the lasses company were young men in immaculate kurta and mundu along with tiny tots. And each one of them was there to prove who was the most traditional of them all. Says John Kurian, producer-director, "Onam is the time when everything goes traditional. Keeping with the mood we thought why not check out what our youngsters think about being traditional. Not only in dress but in deeds and ideas too."

Paddling against the current trend of western influenced beauty pageants, this contest tired to focus on `naadan' aesthetics of beauty. And the sons and daughters of the soil didn't disappoint in their enthusiastic response. From hundreds of applicants they zeroed in on 10 participants in each section. It began with the semi-final round where you had them do the favourite amateur jaunt and then the finals had five participants answer insipidly to questions that ranged from "marriage to marriage"- what each sex thought about the various turns and twists of married life. Nothing gets more traditional than this! The crowd though fell for the little ones' tiny trots and their valorous attempts at mouthing their memorised introductions. Aged between five and 10 and dressed cutely in mini pavada and top or mundus, the precious muthu in the boy's category was Shishir Acharya who "meowed" his way to the trophy. Well, he was asked what does a cat do and this first Std. kid rightly meowed on the mike. From the small girls, Riya was the winner. In the Malayali manka category lissome Parvathy Omanakuttan from Mumbai walked head and shoulders above the rest with her confident poise and easy talk. Her adamant stand on forgoing a choice if she had to save either her father or husband if they were drowning earned her good wishes from a panel of three judges that had Mr. Thyagarajan, Symala Surendran of Dharani School of Performing arts and Mr. Kenny Fernadez, ad filmmaker. The Malayali maaran title went to Akilesh. Though a first attempt at trying to go back to our roots and the spirited participation it garnered from the youth, it still has to be seen whether such fanfare makes people switch over to tradition for namesake or for real.

Rakhee Mohan

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