The Kathakali of Malabar

The Kathakali ofMalabar

The Kathakali is the hoary, purely indigenous, pantomimic dramatic art of Malabar, and makes an unforgettable impression on the mind with its original and extraordinary technique. The Kathakali is a compound art and its predominant dramatic character is vividly reinforced with Dance, Music, Poetry and Painting.

Malabar or Kerala, the land of the Malayalam-speaking people, and consisting today of the political divisions of British Malabar and the twin States of Cochin and Travancore, is distinguished by its many and unique attractions giving it an individuality all its own. While the country is profusely beautiful with evergreen wooded hills and sparkling streams and palm-fringed lagoons, its customs and manners, its laws and usages, are such as are found in few other parts of India and give its cleanly native inhabitants a character hardly less alluring than distinctive. Nowhere else in India do women so habitually cherish their beauty and are so simply and gracefully attired or enjoy an equal freedom. In the domain of property, the most jealously-guarded monopoly of man through the ages, among the Nairs who constitute the main body of the original people of Malabar, women universally took precedence of men till very recent times when modern legislative councils, generally unembarrassed by feminine voice and excitedly imbued with new-fangled notions of what ought to be, began to strike at the ancient privilege.

In ancient times Malabar was ruled by oligarchies of its indigenous Brahmins called Nambudiris, a wonderful people justly famed for their love of quiet simplicity, dry humour and sumptuous amusement.

The Kathakali undoubtedly owes its origin to these endearing and steadfast Brahmins of Malabar who, many centuries ago, left no stone unturned to honour their religion and to increase their enjoyment of life at the same time. In fact, there is hardly any other community in the world in whom we find a genuine religious enthusiasm so happily and strikingly coupled with such wholesome flowing abundance of life.

The stories enacted in the pantomimic play are mostly the legends and Puranas common to the whole of India, and the drama was evidently born in a pious desire to glorify the gods and divine heroes. The life-events of Rama and Krishna formed the earliest dramatisations, and the Kathakali literature which has ceased to grow only in recent times gradually included the whole gamut of the major Hindu myths. Most of the plays are moral in texture and on the Kathakali stage the one running theme is war, war between good and evil, between gods and demons, between the great universal moralities and the great universal temptations.

The literature of the plays consists of vernacular songs and Sanskrit verses succinctly outlining the subject-matter selected for enactment. The Kathakali orchestra is chiefly made of singers, drummers and cymbal-strikers, who stand immediately behind the actors. The singers render the songs and verses and the actors enact their contents by means of gestures and poses, by intricate language of eyes and delicate concatenation of face expressions. The song and verse that briefly narrate the story played are not meant for the audience but only for the actors who carefully translate them into the language of pictorial gesture. The alphabet of the hand-poses contains sixty-four signs which, with their numerous combinations, cover a wide extent of communication. The alphabet of eye and face is chiefly employed for the expression of the emotions. In the Kathakali, the face is literally the loud and eloquent index of the heart and mind. Courage, wonder, fear, pity, tenderness, anger, love and almost all other emotional qualities of the mind have each its visible signature, lightly and cunningly displayed in some part or other of the living canvas of the face. How astonishingly well does the gifted actor project his feelings! The eyeballs unroll evanescent miracles. The dark eyebrows utter the hidden secrets of the heart. Contending feelings speak with a brace of tongues in each eye, and even the same eye delivers opposite moods at the same time. The face becomes the open drama in which the story is drawn in successive shades and touches of lineament. And then there is the dance. The great and gifted actor dances to the measure of the melodies that surge within himself in his total absorption with the character he represents, and the tide ebbs and swells while the drums, cymbals and songs allure his efforts with tender loyalty. In fact, in his best form he is more a dance than anything else; the poses, gestures, indications and movements are all blended together into one supreme rhythmic picture that tells a story and shows a cosmic glimpse at the same time. There are many and various kinds of dances in Malabar, and each represents a vision or a dream. In the Kathakali, the dance rises to beautiful versatility and comprehends the music and meaning of different things. It is psychological, rhetorical and allegorical, and its rhythmic excellence has not perhaps been exceeded by any other kind of dance in India. The gamut of movement often rises from gentle lingering notes of tranquillity to sound and speed like a sudden burst of thunder and lightning on a calm sky spangled with slumbering stars, and often the evolution is almost instantaneous so that the extremes are blended in one wild sweep of art. The singer pours out his verses in unflagging stream. The drums and the cymbals beat to the measure of dance and symbol. The blazing brass-lamp fed by a congregation of wicks, and radiating fantastic arms of shadow and light, enhances the heightening allegory. The story goes forward and thickens and the audience seated on mats and under the open sky is all agape.

Perhaps the most interesting thing in the Kathakali is the elaborate, exquisite or extravagant facial make-up of the dramatis personae. In some characters, the painted face with its fluttering border-lines and fences nearly approaches a work of art. The facial make-up with head-gear and body-garments covers a large variety. The idea underlying the making-up of the characters is to portray them as fully as possible in accordance with their natures. In the Kathakali one may never "smile and smile and yet be a villain." Here is a candid world in which the sheep and goats proclaim themselves.

This tell-tale make-up of the characters, achieved at the expense of much time and pains; provides the chief reason why the tongue is denied its office. Should the characters be allowed freedom of speech they cannot preserve their subtle facial embellishments beyond a few minutes. The impartial observer must concede that the highly suggestive and arresting, make-up of each character more than compensates for the loss of verbal utterance. The Kathakali represents an altogether different world from ours and the vehicle of expression is also accordingly different, how refreshingly different we have seen. But even then, certain characters such as savage giants, demons and Amazonian women, are permitted a little sound. It is some elementary cry varying in note from character to character. For instance, if one screams another simply just makes a hooting or whistling sound. It is noteworthy that these cries also tend in the direction of self-revelation. Without exceeding skill and long experience, it is difficult for a character to indulge his ‘voice’ without upsetting some of his figure, and sometimes one comes across an actor on the stage with face in ruins showing thereby that he could not deliver his speech without injury to his looks.

How and when we do not know, but the Kathakali of Malabar has traveled across the sea to the island of Java and there it flourishes today in its full vigour, while in the country of its birth, it is hardly any longer a living art. The inrush of the Tamil drama into the country, with its expressive speech and song and erotic appeal, dealt the first blow and when the cinema came a little later the Kathakali easily went into its last gasp. Attempts are being frequently made in Cochin and Travancore to snatch this fantastic and fascinating art from the jaws of death. The Maharaja of Travancore still maintains a standing troupe of mimes and it continues to evoke the wonder and admiration of even the most sophisticated folks from abroad. The present Agent to the Governor-General for the South Indian States, Lt.-Col. H.R.N. Pritchard, is known to be a lover of the art and sparing no efforts to encourage its practitioners.

All the same the art is dying. There are practically no new troupes coming up. It requires a long and arduous course of training besides much inborn talent to become a good Kathakali actor, and the game is not worth the candle in an age that looks upon the artist with amused antiquarian interest. The curtain is coming down on this old, old drama of Malabar.

But even today, in remote villages, one often hears at sunset that peculiar quick rhythmic blare of drums and cymbals that announces a Kathakali in the night and the villagers rejoice. ¹

1 Vallathol, the poet of Kerala, has rescued the ‘national art’ of his country from oblivion. Under the auspices of: the ‘Kerala Kala Mandalam,’ he has established a training school for Kathakali actors, and recruited to the profession young men of culture and social status. Vallathol is the leader of an intellectual artistic Renaissance in Malabar.–Editor, Triveni.