Shadow lines
It was 9 pm. There were another two hours for the Tholpavakoothu performance to begin at the Bhagavathy Devi temple in Palakkad, Kerala. Ramachandra Pulavar, one of the greatest artists of the art form, a Padma Shri Award-winner, was sleeping on a mat under a tree in a field. The moment stayed with filmmaker Saheer Ali, who was shooting his documentary on the 2,000-year-old art form, Tholpavakoothu, called Nizhal Yathrikan (Shadow Traveller: A Puppeteer’s Tale). “That single moment portrayed the sad situation of the art form. Film stars rest in air-conditioned caravans, while these greats don’t get any facilities,” says Ali as he trained his camera on Ramachandra, the protagonist of the film.
The art form uses theatre, dance, visual arts and music. And they tell stories from Tamil poet Kamba’s version of the Ramayana. The performances generally begin late at night and continue till dawn. There was a time when people would flock to see a Tholpavakoothu performance. Today, there are only 20 artists who practise the art form. But the Pulavar family, from Shoranur, is undeterred. To them, Tholpavakoothu is a form of devotion.
They get paid a few hundred rupees for a performance, which is staged during the festival season, which starts at the end of December and concludes at the end of May. When not performing, the Pulavars cultivate the land and nurture cows at their farm at Palakkad. The artists apply to the Centre every year and get a grant of about Rs 60,000 each annually—not enough, but it helps them tide over tough times.
“It is true that there is not much revenue. But we are lifelong devotees of the art form. It has been in our family for eight generations. So, it is important that we remain dedicated. If we give up, Tholpavakoothu will die. So, irrespective of the financial difficulties we will continue to support it,” says the 64-year-old Ramachandra, who has diversified from the Ramayana in order to attract a new audience. He recently did a play on Mahatma Gandhi and Jesus Christ. “Plays are also scripted about the dangers of alcohol, women’s safety, and the evils of littering the streets,” says Ali.
How did he decide to make a documentary on the art form? “While working as an associate on Mollywood actor P Balachandran’s film, Ivan Megharoopan, in 2012, there was a sequence of Tholpavakoothu in the film. I came across Ramachandra and his family and it piqued my interest. Later, when the Pulavar family decided to make a documentary on the art form, I was more than happy to helm it,” says the 52-year-old Kochi filmmaker. “We wanted to spread the details of this art form all over the world. We felt that the best way was to archive it through a documentary,” says Ramachandra, whose US-based son has funded the project.
At the start of a performance, there is a smaller white and black curtain with a bouquet of leaves in the middle. The white curtain represents the sky, while the black is a reminder of the earth. The filigreed puppets—earlier made of deerskin, but nowadays goat or buffalo skin is used for easy accessibility—appear on the screen. They fight, they fall off. Sometimes, they hold hands.
At other times, they exchange angry dialogues in a mix of Tamil, Sanskrit and Malayalam, accompanied by the sound of traditional drums, cymbals and gongs. Arrows move across. An opponent is felled, an elephant rumbles across. “Preparing the puppets is a painstaking process. First the hair from the skin is removed, before it is dried in the sun. After that, an artist draws the outline of the character. They then cut it out and paint it with vegetable colours. The movements are manipulated by sticks extending from the figures,” says Ramachandra.
Behind the screen, on a straight line are placed 21 lamps. And the performers, about 10 in total, stand behind the lamps and move the puppets, in an extraordinary display of skill, coordination, understanding and dexterous use of the hands, and always moving the story forward without a pause. And that is what the Pulavar family is doing with the art form—moving forward without a pause.