Next time you see a Malayali beating a noisy tattoo with his fingers on the iron bench while waiting at the bus stop, or drumming them idly on the table during his leisurely tea break in the office canteen, don’t run away with the idea that it’s a crazy personal trait. It may have something to do with the culture of his state. Kerala has a long tradition of nurturing scores of percussion instruments, some of which gained sophistication in technique and timbre over centuries of use and refinement. In fact, it’s probably only in Kerala that you can have a drum concert that might go on for more than four hours. Small but loud, you might say.
Given their backdrop of caparisoned tuskers mounted with colourful parasols, some call these concerts ethnic exotica. But others insist that they are truly classical. Whatever, traditional ensembles that have drums like the chenda, maddalam and the timila besides pipes and cymbals have become an integral part of the sound and sight of Kerala’s festival season that has just begun with the annual fair at a major shrine off Kochi. The ulsavam at Poornathrayeesa temple in Tripunithura is a curtain raiser to a frenzied percussion season that will spread like an infection to other parts of the state and extend to the fag end of summer — until May.
It’s not just the length of these drum concerts — Melam, as they are called — that is surprising. The most refined and popular of these — the Panchari Melam and Pandi Melam — are set to a densely slow tempo at the start. For the average listener, it might interminable. The Panchari Melam takes almost an hour to warm up and sounds like a ‘normal’ percussion exercise in unison. In a perfect scenario, an ensemble would comprise around 150 artistes.
In a pan-Indian context, this is much like Hindustani music. If it is a raga that is explored in an unhurried fashion before advancing on to the medium and fast tracks in the case of the north Indian art, down south in Kerala it is the scope of embellishing the rhythm that is being unveiled. For the record, Panchari is formatted in a taal of six beats, while the other melam, Pandi, stems from 14-beat cycles. And there is another amusing factor about both these melams (much like lesser heard melams such as Navam, Dhruvam, Kalpam and Ekadasam): even as these ensembles are led by the drummer in the middle of the front chenda row, the length of their rhythmic cycles is virtually decided by the central piper (playing the kurumkuzhal) standing opposite him. It’s a piper who anchors a drum concert!
All chenda melams have evolved over time, but these days you get to find that their ornamentations have rather stabilised. In other words, no instrument at a melam is supposed to produce an offbeat, freakish sound. This is where Panchavadyam, another kind of ensemble that totally avoids the , stands unique. There you see a lot of extempore taps and rolls happen during the course of its two or three hours of presentation. The two rows of artistes facing each other and handling the lead drums, maddalam and timila, besides the hourglass-shaped idakka are free to come out with their rhythmic innovations within the pendulum beats — they total a massive 1,792 initially, and halve with each stage.
Panchavadyam, which has the kombu (horn) and ilathalam (cymbals) as the other kind of instruments to make it five altogether, may have a total of 60 artistes, ideally. That’s only a little more than one-third of what you see in chenda melams. What makes these concerts truly remarkable is that there are no rehearsals. As German Rolf Killius, who researches world music and rhythm, says, “I have been to all continents to study ethnic tunes and beats, but only in Kerala have I come across massive drum concerts that are performed without prior drills. It’s amazing, given that the artistes in these 100-plus ensembles come from various belts of your state.”
Killius’s wonderment is understandable. For, an art like Panchavadyam would have performers converging from north Malabar to parts of Travancore. And unlike most chenda melams, it has shrugged off much of its religious tag. Panchavadyam has equally become a way of greeting a Delhi politician landing at Kozhikode or part of a pageant that winds along the roads of Kottayam ahead of an interschool jamboree. For the purist, however, select temple precincts in Thrissur, Palakkad, Malappuram and Ernakulam districts stand as classic venues of Melams and Panchavadyam — some lit up by country torches past midnight.
As for improvisations, a chenda artiste should not, after all, regret he has nothing to ad-lib. For that, he has what is called Thayambaka. This
90-minute concert has a central chenda drummer tastefully filling up spaces between varied taals, the beats of which are laid by half-a-dozen or so fellow drummers and cymbalists. In fact, Kerala has of late seen the concept of Thayambaka taken up by instruments like the big copper drum called mizhavu and even the handy idakka.
Now, even the chenda melam has its loosened-up version. There is the Sinkari Melam that permits freewheeling phrases. What’s more, the artistes sway back and forth with drums slung from their shoulder, rocking the listeners as well. Many of its practitioners are Dalit, and not from the customary temple-allied Marar and Poduval castes. Women drummers, too, have of late made a presence — minuscule, but noticeable. Maestro Mattannur Sankarankutty has tried a more musical Shruti Melam. On the more popular circuits, there are Malayalam films with a chirpy chenda player as the hero. Cine actor Jayaram is himself learning the instrument. The melam audiences have broadened, they are getting young too.
Ahead of a Panchavadyam, reputed maddalam artiste Cherpulassery Sivan once told his fans: “I have an ‘English’ in my kitty today. Let’s see how our timila leader responds to it.” By ‘English’, he meant a new piece of rhythmic roll, hitherto untested live. Festive Kerala awaits more such novelties at its drum concerts. It’s another matter the season can be refreshing even without newness.
— sivadasvarma@gmail.com