Seeking Kalaripayattu
Click here to read this on Rasa Journal where it was first published on Jan 29, 2022.
In 16th century Kerala, there lived a warrior by the name of Aromal Chekavar. A Kalaripayattu adept, he was hired by a man from a higher caste, i.e., a Nair, to settle an inheritance dispute with his elder brother. He was to fight an opponent unto death — a special kind of public duel known as ankam. This was done to declare a clear winner in a dispute in the eyes of the society. Chekavar, like many others like him, belonged to the community of Ezhavas. When the warrior sought his brother to inform him about the duel and seek his permission as per the custom, a ballad records the following as the eloquent appeal made by him —
Grain or wealth we can buy or borrow,
But honour we cannot beg or borrow.
When father went for combats
How much younger was I than you now are.
Father asked my consent,
Which I readily gave;
Even so do I ask of you.
Our forefathers came here
Adorned as professional combatants
When one is born a Chekavan
The Chekor has to earn his bread at the point of his sword.
If anybody comes for ankam
He cannot refuse to go
Better to die with honour
Than to die a plain death
Have you not heard of the four states?
Ankam fighting alone makes a Chekor,
As girding the sword makes a Nayar,
And the sacred thread makes a Namboodiri,
And wearing the tali makes a woman.
He lost the duel because of a betrayal by a family member but his legend lives on in popular imagination in modern-day Kerala as does that of his sister, Unniyarcha, who was even fiercer warrior of the two.
As vibrant as the tradition was at this point, it has seen many ups and downs. According to Phillip Zarrilli, an American director, actor, and a Kalaripayattu adept, the artform has roots in the south Indian dynasty of the Cheras in the Sangam period of 1st-4th century. The warriors at this time, who were often Brahmins or half-Brahmins, were trained at a local village kalari or a royal one. They were beholden to the king, under oath to even die for him, and it was considered a matter of honour to serve him.
There are broadly two styles — northern and southern — of which the former was more prevalent amongst Malayalis and latter amongst Tamilians. Zarrilli, who was not only the second Westerner ever to learn the artform but also the first non-Indian to write an in-depth account of it in his book, When The Body Becomes All Eyes, traces the etymology of the term to Tamil language too. Where kalari is derived from the Tamil word kalam for an arena where a dramatic or gladiatorial exhibition may take place, payattu is derived from payil which refers to the state of being trained. Literally, the composite word refers to a place where one is trained for the purpose of a battle. Until 20th century, however, the term wasn’t in common usage as the locals knew of the practice as a matter of fact.
In 1804, it was banned by the British in the wake of local uprisings against them. Many kalaris, or the training centers, were shut down and as a result Kalaripayattu remained dormant for more than a century until its resurgence in early 20th century. Some masters, or gurukkals, passed on the craft to their students in secret who kept it going until a second resurgence in the 1970s. It took place partly due to the efforts of adepts like Chambadan Veetil Narayanan Nair and Chirakkal T. Sreedharan Nair who helped revive the practice to prominence again. On the other hand, Bruce Lee was taking the world by storm around the same time and everyone wanted to learn martial arts such as Karate, Tae-Kwon-Do and more.
But aren’t martial arts a tad anachronistic in the age of artificial intelligence and drones? Not really, according to practitioners of Kalaripayattu today. In fact, many come to the artform by way of theatre. Both Justyna Rodzinska-Nair and Anjali Shukla found it like that. Where Rodzinska-Nair was introduced to it as part of a theatre workshop by director Abani Biswas in 2004, Shukla came across it in February 2021 in form of a two-week workshop by Kalaripayattu teacher Vinod Kandangal at Lucknow’s Bharatendu Academy of Dramatic Arts where she studies acting. Both loved the martial artform and while Rodzinska-Nair eventually went on to set up a kalari in 2010 in her country of Poland, Shukla hopes to pursue it further in near future.
“What I loved about it and still love has been the completeness and depth of physical and mental experience,” says Rodzinska-Nair, 38, who runs Studio Kalari in Wroclaw along with her husband who is also a Kalaripayattu teacher. “Regular practice affects our lifestyle in terms of paying more attention to what we eat, how we work and where we send our focus and energy so that we don’t run out of our inner resources,” she adds. “We learn to understand how our body and mind function, and also we can feel a special kind of energy, flow, dynamics and focus,” she says.
Shukla, who is currently in her second-year, echoes the sentiment, “we used to practice for 7–8 hours at a stretch and still never felt tired,” she says. “It also helps when we have fighting scenes or have plays like Chandragupta where we have to get the royal gestures right,” she adds further.
Kandangal, 54, who is currently engaged with National School of Drama in Bangalore to teach the artform has given workshops at many premier institutes of India, including Jamia Millia Islamia and Film and Television Institute of Pune among others. “There is a spiritual element to this; the enemy is not outside but inside,” he says. Having learnt Kalaripayattu in his childhood while growing up in Kerala, he feels that “qualities like ego, inferiority complexes, insecurities, and other negativities can be removed by practicing this.” In an age beset by constant distractions, whether the notifications on our tech devices or the need to multitask throughout the day, Kalaripayattu can help people hone their focus. But how exactly does it do that?
The training is divided into four parts, of which the first one is known as meypayattu and involves conditioning of the body. Essentially, it requires a mind-body co-ordination and to achieve this, exercises are designed to mimic animal poses and work one’s spine and joints in entirety. “Until and unless a student becomes fully proficient with this stage, they cannot move on to the next,” says Shinto Mathew, 37, who has been teaching the artform at Kalari Kendram in Delhi since 2008. After this come the stages of learning to use wooden weapons, metal weapons, and finally, understanding the 108 vital points in the body or the marma system.
It was Mathew’s father who first took him and his brother to a kalari in a bid to get the boys to wake up early during their summer holidays in Kozhikode. “Initially, it was a bit uncomfortable — getting up early, touching the feet of the teacher, the traditional set-up, and all — but once we started receiving encouragement, I also started enjoying it more,” he says. Mathew often travelled to Delhi for performances at places like Dilli Haat or to visit his mother who worked as a nurse in the city. His ease with Hindi prompted his teacher to suggest him to set up a training center in the capital. However, when they first set it up in a dance hall in Delhi’s Mayur Vihar, the response wasn’t good. “There was no internet or social media at the time so we would spend 30–40 minutes talking to people about this,” he shares, “but then they would simply say we’ll think about it and never call back.”
It then struck Mathew that the centre should resemble a real kalari. So, when they set up another centre in Noida, it was fully-traditional. “We would light up a diya every morning and set up icons of deities — that gave people confidence that this was real,” he says. “A lot of the commands in Kalaripayattu are in ancient Malayalam and initially, that was also a struggle to translate that for kids but they coordinated with me very well,” he adds.
Today, Kalari Kendram has about 400 active students, half of which join them online from across the world. “It is only for the meypayattu part because only that can be learnt in this way,” he says. While he was skeptical of taking the training online, he tried it mostly to oblige his students during the 2020 lockdowns when they pleaded with him to do so. “Our masters saved Kalaripayattu but now we must make it accessible to everyone; it should not be just Kalaripayattu of Kerala but in fact, Kalaripayattu of India,” he adds, sharing his vision for the future. “I have students from places like Faridabad, Bulandsheher and Ballabhgarh — they travel for 3–4 hours for a one hour class only because they enjoy it so much,” he says, “we need to bring people back to Bharat by making it more enjoyable and accessible.”
Rodzinska-Nair’s experience with the artform and Studio Kalari would seem to further Mathew’s vision. While the mother of three used to balance her passion with her work as a project coordinator specializing in arts, culture, theatre, and research until now, she has turned to Kalaripayattu full-time as of January, 2022. Last year, she wrote a book on the topic which is due to be published in March in Polish and English.
While she says that they have to be mindful of cultural and religious differences between Indians and Polish while teaching their students, they try their best to translate the essence of the practice as much as they can. “We feel responsible for our students, observe them carefully and try to guide them respectively to their physical and inner process,” she says. “What they find important is the intensity of training, combination of conditioning and stretching exercises, forms which develop coordination and all this is done in an atmosphere of real commitment and focus,” Rodzinska-Nair adds. She shares that a lot of foreigners come back to their classes, both online and to their kalari in Thiruvananthapuram to experience the artform even more authentically.
According to Mathew, the artform is not only open to everyone but also helps people come into a balance to the point that they can survive in any situation. “Our youngest student is a six year old girl and it’s very nice to see her practicing next to a 6-foot tall guy,” he smiles. “Kalaripayattu will never make anyone fight unnecessarily or become a liability to the society — a rebellious kid will become calmer and a shy kid will gain more courage,” he explains. “This artform is not designed to attack first but to survive, even when you don’t have any weapons,” he says.
“In other martial arts, only the martial part is there,” agrees Bibin Kavumpurathu, 40, who is a Kalaripayattu teacher based in Goa. He started learning it in Chennai in 2010 where he used to work at a managerial level at various business establishments but turned to the martial art full-time in 2018. “The body movements here are very unique and within 2–3 months, you will start to see a lot of changes in yourself,” he adds. He says that the practice also includes chanting of mantras, oil massages, and so on, which make it more spiritual in nature. Indeed, as with many Indian knowledge systems, Kalaripayattu too has deities who are worshipped by its practitioners as a form of meditation. While some worship a form of Lord Shiva or Goddess Shakti, others may pray to Lord Ganesha. In fact, the martial art is believed to be of divine origin, delivered to mortals by Lord Parshurama, a form of Lord Vishnu.
Kavumpurathu works as a freelance teacher and takes classes in the coastal city’s Panjim and Assagao areas. “The classes in Panjim are for the locals and they sometimes pay in fruits and flowers when they don’t have the money and the ones in Assagao are for tourists,” he shares. The tourists are from both rest of the India as well as countries such as U.S, Spain, Germany, Japan, and more.
Today, Kalaripayattu is not being practiced as a martial art in limited parts of the country only but has taken many shapes and forms across the world. It may be fused with dance, theatre, Ayurveda, and other related new-age practices. While we may not witness Kalaripayattu battles or ankams anymore, there is a duel that rages on eternally — the one within. It is this fight that Kalaripayattu seeks to win as peacefully as possible.
