As ‘Varuthantoppam Olichu Chadiya Thankamme’ rings out, boys in mundu spring into a full-throttle folk routine — shoulders bouncing, mundu hitched up, moving with the kind of infectious energy Kalabhavan Mani’s songs have long brought to stages and crowds across Kerala.
Then come ‘Njanum Ente Aliyanum Koodi’ and ‘Arippodi Jeerakam’, the latter taken over by a group of girls who carry the same raw energy — only this time, thousands of kilometres away from Kerala.
The music soon takes off in every direction. The Instagram favourite ‘Kaavane’ gives way to ‘Pottu Kuthedi’ and the ‘Gumma gumma’ refrain of ‘Ollulleru’. For nearly eight minutes, Malayalam folk, film nostalgia and social-media favourites tumble into one another, with the children singing along and switching steps as the songs change.
The dancers are students of NSCBAV School in Karo, a remote village in Arunachal Pradesh’s Shi Yomi district. Their unlikely Malayalam medley was part of the school’s Onam celebration, put together with 28-year-old Malayali teacher Ali Ashqar from Areekode in Malappuram.
But he never imagined that the celebration would carry the little school far beyond the hills of Karo and onto millions of phone screens.
One video of the celebration crossed around five million views, while reels that followed drew considerable attention of their own. Union Minister Kiren Rijiju also shared a clip from the celebrations.
“We had celebrated Onam last year too, but on a much smaller scale. This time, I thought we should make it a much bigger celebration,” says Ashqar.
“Onam is a celebration where people come together regardless of religion or background. I wanted the children to understand that spirit of different traditions coming together and the sense of togetherness it carries,” says Ashqar.
Dance was only one part of the celebration. The students made a pookkalam, teachers turned up in mundu and saree, while some children wore gal, a local traditional attire.
Flowers collected from homes around the village went into the pookkalam. Banana leaves were used for the decorations as well as the meal, and the school put together a sadhya with rice, sambar, rasam, pappadam, pickle, banana chips and payasam.
Putting all of that together, however, was far from easy.
“The village is very far from the city, so procuring everything was difficult. It is around 200km away, but because of the condition of the roads, the journey can take almost eight hours. There is also limited electricity and internet connectivity here,” says Ashqar. “But for this purpose, all the teachers, students and villagers came together. The villagers contributed vegetables, while some of the other things had to be brought from the city.”
There was a Maveli too.
Finding a conventional Maveli costume in this remote corner of Arunachal Pradesh was difficult, so the school gave Mahabali a distinctly local makeover. One of the students dressed up as Maveli in the traditional attire and ornaments of the Adi Bokar tribe, bringing a touch of Arunachal to one of Onam’s most familiar figures. Ashkar also taught ‘Maveli Nadu Vaneedum Kalam’ to the students.
When he joined, the institution was going through a difficult period. There was no hostel, students were dropping out, and the school was on the verge of closure.
It was around the time the government and an NGO stepped in that Ashqar joined the school as a language teacher. Today, the school has 102 students.
Through his Instagram page teacher_tales_, Ashqar has been sharing glimpses of everyday life at the school — children dancing and singing, hostel life and the little moments that make up their days. Long before the Onam reel drew millions of views, the account had already been offering a window into a corner of school life that rarely travels beyond the region.
“I want the outside world to see these children and what they are capable of — their skills and everything they can do,” says Ashqar.
“They were very happy when the video went viral. They kept asking me to make more videos like it.”