BENGALURU: The past weekend, Bengalureans got a chance to witness a 400-year-old storytelling art form at a session called Kaavad Katha, organised by Indian Music Experience. The folk art, originating from Rajasthan, is a composition of finely threaded stories with various mythical characters set in different time and spaces.
Akhshay Gandhi, a performer at the event, explained that Kaavad is a form of telling stories of genealogy, which maintains a family history. “It’s passing on wisdom to a specific family or community through storytelling. Kaavad is actually a box that has many doors. Every door has a painting so there’s a part that gets revealed and one that gets hidden. Some paintings might be related to previously opened doors and some might not,” he added.
The stories usually are tales from of the Ramayana, Mahabharata, local heroes, gods, warriors or family history. “Over four years of research, we have been observing and learning what makes Kaavad. The aim is to spread more awareness so people know about Kaavad. This will help build a support system around it,” said Gandhi, who is the founder and artistic director of Still Space Theatre.
Shedding more light on the research process, he said it is more empiric than scientific. “For example, immigration or mental health is a phenomenon, which contains multiple subject matter and we try to investigate it from different perspectives. At today’s event, we looked at ‘Maya’. In English, it loosely translates to illusion but it can also be a driving force of the world. So we looked at it from a philosophical point of view, socio-political point of view and economic point of view,” he said.
That a lot of work and research has gone into the work was evident from the audience reaction to it, who were largely appreciative. “I learnt a lot about not just the story but about the culture of Kaavad as well,” said Arya Mohan, an attendee at the event.
Agreed Harini Kesavamurthy, who was also present at the event and said she didn’t know much about the art form till now. “It was great to see a young group take an interest in it.”The art form, however, still has a long way to go in gaining awareness, said Gandhi, adding that two to three traditional Kaavadias are there but neither is the younger generation learning the art form, and nor are the traditional performers performing openly. “At the village I went to for research, it was tough to find a performer as people weren’t aware of Kaavad. Upon finally finding him, he told me they don’t reveal their identity because Kaavad is no more their main profession. They perform just for the patron families. But now we are bringing it to the cities,” he added.