Articles

Two

I wanted to know about the Mohiniyattam performers who lived in on the banks of Bharathappuzha during the 19th-20th centuries. I went to Lakkidi on August 06 for the field work regarding this. The data I had lost because I was so late pains me from that day onwards. All the people I met told me “if you had visited some months or years ago!” All the people who would have been able to educate me passed away. As each man with memories passes away, with them, each era vanishes too. Naturally, by the time I reached, several memories had already faded. 

My previous studies were the books by Kanak Rele, Kalamandalam Kalyanikkuttiyamma, Kalamandalam Sathyabhama, Nirmala Panickar, Justin Lemos, and monograph by Betty True Jones, theses by people like Aswathi Rajan, and some films by Vinod Mankara. (The list isn’t complete). I began my search in the light of my familiarity with these. I had posted a note asking help regarding this search for dancers. It had included the details of dancers available from the previous studies. Let me commemorate some people who related to this search in many ways. VM Girija, Manikandan K K, Sreelakshmi Mullappilly are some of the people who came forward to help. Through them, some valuable data came to me. I should also remember some of my friends along with them. Among them, there are Professor Davesh Soneji and Nrithya Pillai. I am doubtful if my research would have been possible without these two friends. It was my decision to share all my doubts during the research with them. The opinions of Nrithya, who is a traditional dancer as well as someone with great political sense are so deep. Interventions of Davesh, who conducts research in the south Indian dance history is quite rational. Both of them give me directions now.   

Three

I met M Rajesh, an Ottanthullal artist at Lakkidi and he was the first person I met there. He tried calling many times to the library there so that I could access a book titled “Nilayorathe Muthumanikal”, written by P Sivadas, a journalist-cum- teacher. Geetha, the librarian searched a lot for that book. One who researches about the dancers in Lakkidi will first hear about this book before anything else. In it, there are details about the dancers of Lakkidi like Chomayil Madhaviyamma and Mankili Kochukuttiyamma collected by P Sivadas. Even though I knew about the book earlier, I was able to get hold of the same after a few days of the journey. Rajesh helped me later as well. I will talk about in the following pages. 

It was Jayan (Nannankottil) who accompanied me in the journey. Manikandan, a native of Lakkidi introduced him to me. (Manikandan K.K is an office assistant in the revenue department at Ottappalam. He was another person to have approached me with helping mind). Jayan came with me without any reluctance. No, I should say that he rather brought me to all the houses. Since we were together, we forgot about the distance we covered. We first went to meet Balakrishnan Nair, who was more than 80 years old then. He is related to both Chomayil family and Mankili family. The dancer Chomayil Madhaviyamma is the elder sister of his paternal grandmother. Padmanabhan Nair is the son of Parukkuttiyamma, who is the younger sister of Madhaviyamma. Balakrishnan Nair is his son. He started telling: “it was not known as Mohiniyattam earlier. It was called as Devadasi dance. It has a cheap undertone. It was made Mohiniyattam as we see now by people who ran Kalamandalam. When you say Devadasi dance, it has connections to what happens inside brothels. They (dancers) were considered to be second rate people in the society then. Hence, nobody else learned it in the family. People were not available for this”. 

While talking about this, he became eloquent about the caste inequalities that existed then. He even quoted a sloka about untouchability: “If a lower caste touches a higher caste, they will have to take a dip in river after a sprinkle of cowdung. (The lines weren’t clear and cannot be accurate). That was the period when such laws existed. There were several castes in Nairs like Pallichan. During those times, in Manas (house of Kerala Brahmins), people below the caste of nair weren’t supposed to go for work. When the people from nair community went to Manas, they were not supposed to wear jackets but could wear dhotis. They could use a towel over the shoulders. It was such a time. The Namboothiris used to ogle at their bodies and enjoyed what they saw. I am 86 years old now. I had seen women who used to work in the manas without tops”.

While talking about the Mohiniyattam performers, Balakrishnan Nair and his wife Manathanath Sarada talked about the power of Namboothiri’s as well. He testified that Mohiniyattam was more widely performed in Namboothiri manas. He continued: “the people who can supplement more on these are no longer alive. Mohiniyattam was not performed in temples. In the temples, there were arts like Chakyarkooth, Koodiyattam, Padakam etc. It used to be performed in the namoothiri manas though. Mankili Kochukuttiyamma and Chomayil Madhaviyamma used to dance together. They were a team. I have seen Madhaviyamma in person but not her dance. By then she was old. She had hallucinations. She used to keep saying same things. That was not madness. But she was mentally ill”. 

It was how life used to be in those times. Sarada told without any wonder that people lost control of their minds once they are past 60. Anyhow, when I got down from there, a dancer who was mentally ill accompanied me. I did not think that I would know that her madness had more layers. 

From there, we went to Mankili house. It was the same house where in the dancer Mankili Kochukuttiyamma used to live. In that house, Usha (63) in her lineage and her family reside now. Usha told me that Kochukuttiyamma was a real beauty and Chovvalliyur Namboothiri was enamoured by her beauty that he married her after watching her performance. Her marriage was when she was 13. The current Mankili house was given by Chovvalliyur Namboothiri. After the wedding, Kochukuttiyamma’s expenses were fulfilled by Chovvalliyur Namboothiri. She wasn’t permitted to perform. When Namboothiri asked her what she wanted to so that she didn’t have to go perform, she asked for house and plot nearby. Considering those times, it was enough to survive with agriculture and so on. 

It was from Usha that I knew about a third dancer was there along with Madhaviyamma and Kochukuttiyamma. That was a trio. The third person was from Oravil family. But she didn’t know her name.   It made me happy that a trio of women danced there. She also told me that the performances were in the Manas. There was no public performance. Kochukuttiyamma had four sons and a daughter. Her daughter Devakiyamma would sing and perform Kaikottikkali. Usha suggested to meet koshambilli Ammini teacher to get more details about her. Amminikutty teacher still performs Kaikottikkali. She learned it from Mankili. 

When we reached Oravil house, we could meet two people: Sreedevi (74) and Vishwanadhan (84). Oravil Madhaviyamma is the mother of Oravil Sreedevi. The dancer I search was her sister. I am not sure if she was her elder sister or the younger one. I don’t know the name as well. She was an expert in Kaikottikkali. That was how it used to be then. Some of them were good at singing and some of them were good at performing. During those times, they used to perform Kaikottikkali along with Mohiniyattam. Among the trio, the dancer from Oravil was the expert on Kaikottikkali. I saw the photo of Madhaviyamma, who was the sister of the dancer, on the wall. I captured it on phone. 

We went to meet Sreedevi at Padinjare Kochambilly madom. She is Amminikutty teacher, also known as Ammini Nangyaramma already mentioned above. She was born to Mani Madhavachakyar. She has learned Koothu traditionally and Music and Kaikottikkali from Mankili. She described about the hearsay that there was someone who performed Devadasi dance so wonderfully.  It was about Chomayil Karthyayaniyamma. I heard that name for the first time. She remembered Madhaviyamma after Karthyayaniyamma. But she also confirmed that Madhaviyamma was more into dance. According to her memory, Karthyayaniyamma was the younger sister of Madhaviyamma. It was Karthyayaniyamma who popularized dance more. But Madhaviyamma and Kochukuttiyamma also did this. When she was a child, she had seen Karthyayaniyamma.  Karthyayaniyamma used to take bath in a pond nearby. With her, there would be Radhamani and Rajam of Mankili. They used to play together. She had not noticed anyone’s dancing when she was a child. But she had learned Thiruvathirakkali under Mankili Kochukuttiyamma when she was 8-9 years old. On the first days, Kochukuttyamma would teach some classical music. Later, she would some short songs. After that, some padams like Nalacharita and Dakshayaga. The most important one was Nalacharitha. Sreedevi remembered that it was how teaching was done. She added: “Kochukuttiyamma would have performed Mohiniyattam more before she became old. Once she became old, she must have shifted to Thiruvathirakkali. When she was teaching me, she was more than 60 years old. Pankidiyedath Deavkiyamma also performed Thiruvathirakkali. I had also seen her. Mohiniyattam was performed in Namboothiri illams more. It was known as Devadasi dance then. It was treated as a substandard dance form then. 

There are similarities between Mohiniyattam and Nangyarkoothu when it comes to acting. But actions and steps are more in Mohiniyattam. In Nangyarkoothu, gestures are more even though there are movements. There are similarities in mudras as well. In Koothu, mudra is more important. The other performance is more action-oriented. They would show some mudras in between though.”

When asked about the dress code, Sreedevi told me about something called “sewing the jasmine bud.”  It seems that it would be part of recent history. For, they would sew the jasmine bud on the jacket. This was made with cotton from kapok tree. The jacket does not have full sleeves. There is a kasavu shawl in hands. The rest of the clothing comprises of dhoti. There is a crown on the head as well. Such small crowns were made with card boards. On the two sides of the head, similar to the current get-up, there would be ornaments that looks like sun and moon. 

While talking, she mentioned a Mohiniyattam teacher named Ravunni Asan. It made me wonder that she had a particular vision about how the people imagined morality. It went like this: “look at the stories. How were Urvashi and Menaka?  They were treated as good women. They would go with anyone. Don’t the stories tell the same? Even when Indra moves, Indrani stays. What does it mean?  So when it is a god, it is a norm but when it is a human being, it is base”. While telling these, she remarked that the dancers were efficient women. She talked about the women from Chomayil, Mankili, Oravil, and Pankidiyedath: “they were stronger than men. Even if someone calls them Devadasis, they would not mind. The performances were in big illams. Sometimes, the performance would be for a single spectator. The entire expense should have been borne by that person. He would marry some of them sometimes. Or they would be kept as concubines. Sometimes, they would be sent away. Those who held power moulded the dancers in this manner. If one doesn’t dance for them, it would be difficult to live. The dancers would demand money but that was a different affair.”

The dancers sang the accompaniment. Sreedevi learned music from them. She sang some padams like Enthaho Vallabha, Alarshara parithapam etc. She wanted me to perform in front of her. I wasn’t reluctant. I showed the mudras for Enthaho Vallabha. The song was just like the way she told. It was Carnatic music. But it was a mild version. I noticed the way she sang Alarshara Parithapam. It was on the style of Thiruvathira song. 

I could meet only these many people that day. Though I could not meet Chomayil Rajalakshmi (76), I could call her over phone later. Chomayil Madhaviyamma is her mother’s mother’s elder sister. Rajalakshmi is with her kids, staying in Chennai and Bangalore. Rajalakshmi told me that when she was a child, she had seen Madhaviyamma in a locked room when she had hallucination. She was locked inside. Rajalakshmi as a child had seen that she used dance in that room. She is the above mentioned dancer, who was known to have been mad. But Rajalakshmi knew how she became mad. She talked without any breaks or much thoughts. I kept listening to her: “Madhaviyamma’s younger sister’s son wouldn’t let her go out to perform. Yet she used to take classes for a couple of students. But that was restricted later. That was how the times were. She wouldn’t be permitted to go out too. She was broken inside gradually. What I remember is that she was locked inside the room. She was a good woman. Even when she was moribund, she had an aura. I know that. Chomayil house still stands. That is an old tharavadu. They have a pond as well. 

There was someone called Mankili Kelu Nair. She was with him. He died. Mankili Kochukuttiyamma is the disciple of Madhaviyamma. As a child, when I asked why she was locked, my mother’s elder sisters told me that she was broken because she wasn’t permitted to perform. She loved art. When we look through the window, she would be performing Mohiniyattam inside the locked room. I still remember it. She used to perform even when she was mentally ill. She was that interested in it.

It was considered that Mohiniyattam was the dance of prostitutes. The women of those times never wore blouses. Madhaviyamma also didn’t wear blouse. Instead, she would cover herself with a towel or something. I had a photo where she covered herself in that manner. Someone brought it from me. It was more than 20 years ago. But I still remember that. I have no photo of her. But someone from Kairali TV had come and shot some photos. I do remember that. It was near our pond”

She concluded saying this. That conversation broke me. The description that she in her childhood would see a Mohiniyattam performer dancing passionately while being locked in the room encircled me with such heaviness. It reminded me that Mohiniyattam performers faltered in every sense. They didn’t have a space. When a dancer loses space, it means that she would lose everything. She didn’t reach to the modern Mohiniyattam stages. The older arenas became obsolete. Without having any space, she withdrew. 

Four.

The dancers who lost their ground. They are the ones who deconstructed the previous notions about the dancers. It helped me not to trust the concepts formed about the dancers in the nationalistic era. Yet, the researchers here couldn’t recognize that the study if there were devadasis in Kerala or not is nothing but absurd. The problem lies where, who are we searching for. The concept of Devadasi cannot be seen concretely in Kerala, not even in India. It is a special and complex concept that has no connection to reality. Devadasis who lived a temple oriented – religious life and gradually declined is a myth. That is the offshoot of the hindu nationalism as well. We get a bigger picture of dancers only when do we come out of the concept of Devadasis.  That is when we can understand dancers as someone who could maintain complex relation with feudal power structure in each region. Devesh Soneji had already argued about this. If so, there were dancers who lived in Kingly- Chieftain- Brahmin power logic in Kerala as well.  Mohiniyattam is their dance. When we consider the 19th and 20th century history of Mohiniyattam, the dancers were all from the Nair community. In a way they were doing their duty in the feudal system.

To mock, Mohniyattam was also called Devadasi dance just like Bharatanatyam and Kalavanthalu dance were mocked. One should problematize that word because of this reason itself. It is only during the renaissance period that Devadasi as a term is used with the current connotation. I would like to keep using the term Mohiniyattam because of this. It is clear that Dasiyattam and Devadasi dance are the words used to mock Mohiniyattam and Dancers in the 19th and 20th century. As a proof for this, there are written documents in Malayalam along with people’s memories. Yet, as a dance form, Mohiniyattam the term was widely accepted in those times. And It is a reality that we can only think and talk about Mohiniyattam in the present tense. This is because the dance of the previous Mohiniyattam performers is lost in every sense. And it is a fact that we have no liberation from the clutches of modernity. We don’t have to bring the old Mohiniyattam back. We do not have to romanticize it as well. Yet we should comprehend the life of dancers historically. We should realize its politics. I also continue the endeavor for that.