‘‘I am a chenda player and I shall always be a chenda player, whatever award I may get’’ - this was Mattannur Sankarankutty Marar just a day after the Government announced the Padmasree Award in his honour. He was in the city to perform at a fusion percussion concert held as part of the Nishagandhi festival. ‘‘This is the first time that ‘chenda’ is being recognised. I consider it as a recognition of my sincerity,’’ said the percussion maestro.
This was actually his second performance after being told of the honour, the first one was at the Kuttankulangara Mahavishnu temple, Poonkulam at Thrissur. It was the day when television channels scrolled the news and people came pouring in for the performance. ‘‘I suddenly became a curiosity piece,’’ recollected Marar with a smile. But did this play on his mind while performing that day? ‘‘No way. When I am playing, I just play. I cannot think. Actually I cannot afford to think because a slight distraction would upset the rhythm,’’ he said.
Unlike a good proportion of other percussion artists, Mattannur does not subscribe to the theory that percussion instruments have their own existence in concerts, maybe except for Thayambaka, in which the main player at the centre improvises rhythmically on the beats of half-a-dozen or a few more chenda and ilathalam players around. ‘‘In fact, thayambaka is one chenda concert that allows maximum individual freedom to the main player. It begins at a slow pace before scaling on to a medium tempo and eventually culminating in high, frenzied speed,’’ said Mattannur.
Mattannur Sankarankutty Marar pointed out most of the art forms in Kerala had such a pattern, like a pyramid. ‘‘Thayambaka, like panchavadyam or most chenda melams, is primarily a temple art, but nowadays you can see it being performed outside the temple premises too. For thayambaka, the peculiarity is that people keep coming in whereas in the case of other percussion concerts, its the other way round,’’ he said.
Mattannur firmly believes that all other percussion instruments, be it mridangam or tabla or ghatom or ghanjira can only be accompaniments. ‘‘How long will you listen to just ghatom or tabla for that matter?. Maybe half an hour or three-fourths of an hour. Beyond that you lose attention,’’ he said.
However, the maestro pointed out that there is no heirarchy in the world of music. ‘‘What makes you big is the breadth of your mind. The more broad-minded you are, the more great you are as a musician,’’ he pointed out. Mattannur Sankarankutty also remembered a concert with Balabhaskar at the same venue a couple of years ago, which he had enjoyed a great deal.
He had also been in the city as a judge for the school youth festival. ‘‘Oh yes, the children are very promising. It’s either grade A or grade C. Either they are very good or not good at all. Most of them were very good,’’ said Mattannur.
How was Mattannur as a student? The answer was given by Shanavas Khan, who had made a documentary on the percussion master a year ago. ‘‘You see, generally everybody has a feeling that these masters are highly-disciplined and very rigid people. When I was making the film on him, I discovered a whole lot of photographs of him with his gurus. There was so much camaraderie among all of them that it would be a revelation for all students of percussion,’’ he said.
