81. Krishnapriya Sudarsan

Abstract 81
Krishnapriya.S                

The Voyage Out:
A Comparative Performance Study on Chathirakali an Indigenous Art form among Namboodiris in Kerala

Chathirakali otherwise known as Yatrakali is a ritual art form among a particular sect of Namboodiris in Kerala. The term “chathira” itself is pluri- significant. It means ‘a cook’ as well as ‘an armed man’ where as ‘kali’ means ‘a play’. This art is an amalgam of music, dance, drama, cooking and martial arts. Chathirakali is also significant as a performance as it blends to its conventions many of the performance traditions like porattu, which were labelled as low art forms belonging to the marginalised sects of Kerala society. This research intends to evaluate the performance and text of Chathirakali on par to its significance with the life style of Namboodiris and to prove that regardless of its mistaken identity as an art form of the elite, Chathirakali initiates a counter- discourse inside the Namboodiri community and its exclusionary mechanisms. The present proposal for the re-assessment of Chathirakali (Yatrakali), an indigenous dramatic form of Kerala aims at analysing the literary text, studying the performance and through this make an analytical study on the culture, history, rituals and aesthetics of Namboodiris or Kerala Brahmins. 

Thus a research in the performing art Chathirakali helps us to evaluate three different dimensions of the art form in the area of Comparative Literature studies, they are, a) it helps to understand  Chathirakali as a counter-discourse that challenges the canonical idea of theatrical performance b) it helps to find the politics of performance or ‘the politicisation of aesthetics’ that facilitates a venue to discuss issues regarding majority, minority, marginalisation and exclusionary mechanisms c) it also facilitates to think about the possibilities of inclusion of performance oriented textual study in academia because the horizon of expectation and understanding of the cultural dynamics of a particular ‘text’ beyond its modality is possible through performance. The horizon of expectation of a performance ‘text’ enables the spectator to understand the ‘context’ through multiple signifiers that include language, body, gesture etc. 

As mentioned earlier, Chathirakali is an art form developed by a particular sect of Namboodiris who were known as “Chathira Namboodiris” or “Yatra Namboodiris”. Historical evidence states that these were a group of Namboodiris who were trained in martial arts in order to protect the Namboodiri community from forced conversions to Buddhism during eighth century A.D. These armed men moved from one place to another and guarded the Namboodiri families across Kerala. Hence they cooked on their own and spent their spare times with dance, music and practice in martial arts. Cooking and martial arts where not the duties to be performed by the Brahmins according to Chathurvarnyam. Hence these Brahmins were degraded as the lowest sect inside the community. They were denied all privileges inside the community. Even though, it is celebrated as an elite art form by the Namboodiris, this art is a satire on the stringent practices of Namboodiri community.

 Chathirakali is symbolic of a ‘voyage-out’ by a particular sect of Namboodiris from the majority of Brahmins who believed in the division of human beings according to their occupation. As the word ‘yatra’ means journey yatrakali is a representation of a voyage out of the rigid and illogical customs followed by the Namboodiris of Kerala. The benefits of seeing the society both from inside and outside the instructive and interpellating systems that normalise and subject individuals enabled these Yatra Brahmins to ridicule the follies of the system to which they shared their living. This helped them realise the imaginary partition that creates the dichotomy of the ‘self’ and the ‘other’