KOCHI: But for his student we would not have known about Nazer Ismail Sait, better known as I Nazer Gurukkal in the kalaripayattu circles. It was sans any publicity that he came up as a kalari guru. The man who once thought that he should believe in Allah alone today knows for sure that there is only one God. The reason why he is the only member of the Kutchi Memon community who is into kalaripayattu, tiding over resistance from his family and society.
Today he runs Jai Hind Kalari Sangham at Athirampuzha in Kottayam district. “Kalaripayattu is often related to the Hindu community. But I strongly hold that it is an art which is beyond the barriers of caste and creed. The guru is not a person but a power who should be able to make way through darkness,” says Nazer.
He traces his roots to the Kutchi Memon community (history has it that Kutchi Memons are Vaishya Brahmins who converted to Islam) who came to Thiruvananthapuram during 1806-1809 to do business. “Some 29 families had come here and I belong to the sixth generation of the community,” he says. “My father, Ismail Yakub Sait, has told me about my paternal grandfather’s marriage which took place in Thiruvananthapuram. The members of the Travancore royal family had then given a chariot drawn by four horses for the marriage party to travel from Vallakkadavu to the venue. Models of chairs and tables made of paddy grains were gifted to them. That was the relation my forefathers had with the royal family.”
The Kutchi community used to do trade in stationery goods and provided stuff to the palace as well. “Our shop, ‘Abdulla Aboobacker Sait and Sons’, used to function at Kothuvaltheruvu then.” The ancestral house of the family is still at Attakulangara, Thiruvananthapuram.
Young Nazer, who had to stop his studies after Class X, then took up kalaripayattu. “I decided to learn it to protect my sisters from eve teasers,” he says. He began his training under Thankappan Nadar master and also learnt marmachikitsa from H Robinson master and J Manas master. Other masters under whom he has trained include Yusuf, Abubakker, J Chellayyan, Ali, Durai Raj and Muhammed Sali.
Nazer is trained in the southern style of kalaripayattu. A kalari practitioner can defend any attack with or without weapon. The southern style uses less weapons when compared to the northern. The syllabi and treatment of the art in the two systems are different from each other. The southern style has got divisions like chuvadu mura (protecting oneself by balancing the body and movements through different kinds of steps), ati mura (bare-handed fighting technique which includes some 64 varieties), aayudha mura (shielding the body without weapon from attacks using weapons), marma prayoga (striking at vital points of the body to subdue enemies) and ilakku mura (restoring a person injured by marma attack).
It was at the age of 22 that he went to Kottayam to teach kalari. “There were people, especially Christians, who doubted whether a Muslim can teach kalaripayattu. I never tried to enter into a fight with them and gradually, they understood my intention. Now I am proud to say that I have over 100 students and they belong to different religions. My house and kalari stand near a Vishnu temple.”
Nazer, now 53, has been an office-bearer of the Kerala State Kalaripayattu Association affiliated to Kerala Sports Council. It was in 1985 that he started Jai Hind Kalari Sangham, the same year in which he was awarded the title ‘Gurukkal’ by the Kerala State Kalari Gurukkal’s Organisation. Since 2002, his institute is the approved Kalaripayattu Academy in Kottayam district (as per the norms of the Directorate of Sports and Youth Affairs, Government of Kerala). The institute had represented Kerala at the World Martial Arts Festival held in Mumbai in 1996. Marmachikitsa or therapeutic treatment of vital points is also conducted at the institute.
Excited about the prospect of kalaripayattu making it to the school syllabus some time in the future, he says, “Students, who otherwise lack enough exercise, can definitely develop discipline, mental balance, concentration and confidence and bring in so much positivity in their thought process. Eight years is the right age to start learning kalari.”
He is married to Faseela and has five children — four girls and one boy. “All my children have learnt kalari,” he says with pride. He dreams of taking kalaripayattu around the world. “People should know that unlike other martial arts, kalari is for saving oneself than for punishing one’s enemies. A kalari practitioner discourages enemy attacks by self-defence instead of resorting to attacks.”
When he says “I am doing a service for the country”, Nazer means it. For, he sincerely believes that kalari practice is all about weeding out impurities in the mind and body, thereby bringing up a healthy society.
To know more about Nazer Gurukkal, log on to www.jaihindkalari.com. He can be contact at 94479 17937.
athira@expressbuzz.com