The artist Kalamandalam Prabhakaran was born in Kuttamath, Kasargod district, in 1945 as the son of Makkamma and Kunjambu Nair. He completed the diploma course in Thullal at the Kerala Kalamandalam Institute under the maestros Kalamandalam Divakaran Nair and Vadakkan Kannan Nair in 1964. Later he mastered the basics of Bharatanatyam under the tutelage of Natanam Sivapal and in Parayan Thullal under Vechur Tankamani Pillai. Prabhakaran has given more than fifteen thousand performances.
Thullal is a stage art form that evolved in Kerala as the brainchild of the great artist Kalakkath Kunjan Nambiar during the 18th century AD. Its is a solo dance form that involves verbal rendition of lyrical contents in Malayalam, the mother tongue of people born in Kerala, and in Sanskrit, the classical language of India. Its repertoire is based on epic stories and contains a lot of satire and plane humour enjoyed by the elite as well as the common man. Artists have enough scope to innovate so as to draw parallels with contemporary matters and thus interact with the audience. Identifying and bringing into the open the ills of society are hidden objectives of this performance genre.
Facial expressions, hand gestures and stylized footwork are essential to the body language of Thullal. The basic tenets of the body language closely follow those of Kathakali and Krishnanattam, two other popular performance genres of Kerala. However, in these forms the dancer-artists do not verbally delineate any of the subject contents, but Thullal artists do. Thullal calls for a profound stamina and tenacity on the part of the performer as continuous body movements and verbal rendering go together for two or three hours. Often a Thullal artist needs to perform twice or thrice a day on stages far away from each other. A vocalist and a percussionist provide the orchestral support. The vocalist plays a pair of small cymbals (kuzhitaalam) and the percussionist plays on the mridangam. The musical tunes and rhythmic scales are exclusively those belonging to the theatre styles of Kerala. Artists perform in front of an oil lamp, which is considered to represent the presence of the Almighty.
The Thullal artist uses native pigments, called manayola (yellow), chayillyam (red), neelam (blue) and mashi (black), mixed with coconut oil or water, for his facial make-up. He inserts a specially processed floral substance into the lower eyelids that turns the eyes red. This is perceived as adding to the aesthetic colour sensation and it cools the eyes. Thullal knows three different styles of performance: Seetangam, Ottan and Parayan. Seetangan has decorations freshly made out of tender coconut palm leaves, golden beads and broad white and red cotton flaps around the waist. The Ottan style, which will be shown in the Festival, does not use palm leaves. Its colourful ornaments are made out of light wood, gold foil, mirrors, golden beads and woolen fibers.
Kalyana Saugandhikam is Kunjan Nambiar's first script for Thullal. It describes the popular Mahabharata episode in which the monkey-god Hanuman meets his brother step-brother Bhima. On the request of Draupadi, her husband Bhima, the physically mightiest of the Pandavas, sets forth to gather the fragrant Saugandhika flowers. He enters the jungle of Kadaleevanam dense with trees shrubs and herbs of all kinds. Birds, bats and eagles fly across the darkness. Bhima proceeds shattering rocks and ripping huge trees apart with his mace. He wonders who keeps this jungle so well-guarded.
Deep in the heart of this jungle Hanuman sits in meditation when he is disturbed by someone approaching his abode filled with the quiescence of nature. Realising that it is his mighty younger brother Bhima he decides to teach him a lesson. Assuming the form of an aged, debilitated monkey, Hanuman lies across the path. When Bhima sees the monkey blocking his way, he orders him to move to the side. Hanuman tells Bhima that he is unable to do so. A long verbal battle ensues. Bhima announces that it is only because of his reverence for his brother Hanuman that he will not attempt to kill the aged monkey. Hanuman mocks Bhima's act of setting out to fulfill a woman's craze to get some flowers without knowing its source. However, so Hanuman tells him, Bhima may kindly use his mace to move his tail and proceed. Bhima is unable to do so and in his attempts to move the monkey's tail his mace nearly gets crushed. His entire ego is shattered. Hanuman reveals his identity and explains how he can reach the divine pond of Kubera, from where he can collect the Saugandhika flowers. Bhima takes leave from Hanuman after having received his blessings. He defeats the guards that protect Kubera's pond and collects the flowers. Upon his return he bows in all humility to his elder brother Yudhisthira and hands over the flowers to his beloved wife.
Performers Vocal - Aayamkudi Tankappan Nair
Kalamandalam Prabhakaran
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