The tunes are earthy, sung skywards with the pathos of the soil, tamed, shaped, and made ready for the seeds to sprout. Music has always been there in the backdrop, supporting the farmers as they toiled on their land.
These tunes have been slowly fading into oblivion. Chandiroor Maya’s tryst with music began here: the group wanted to learn, document, and preserve these songs so that the land and its people would never forget them as mere relics of the past.
“Maya or Mature and Abled Young’s Association was formed in 1978 in an agricultural village named Chandiroor in Aroor panchayat on the Alappuzha-Ernakulam border. Those were times when green fields and verdant vegetation occupied swathes of land here,” recalls Kamalasanan V A, a former government employee who was one of the founding members of the collective.
“All that has changed now, and so has our group. We began as a local recreation club where students and youngsters would get together to play badminton or some other games by the paddy fields and open grounds.”
Except for Kamalasanan, all members of the original team have moved on in pursuit of jobs and livelihoods. “The team diverged from sports to the arts — first as a theatre group and then, from 1997 onwards, by incorporating folk tunes we gathered from across the state,” he says.
The theatre plays staged by Chandiroor Maya reflected the ‘son-of-the-soil’ theme, focusing on stories from their own neighbourhood and the lives of people grappling with everyday struggles.
That was until experts from the School of Drama came to train them. It exposed them to the culture and nuances of professional theatre. The group then began staging adaptations from literary works, including world classics. “This still continues. But the turning point came when we started making music,” says Kamalasanan.
“We found that the traditional tunes sung by our grandparents, by workers in the fields, and by various communities as part of their cultural expression, were slowly fading away. Some were songs we grew up with, like those sung during seed-sowing time or during Onam when we gathered for ‘kaikottikali’ and other festive games.”
The group now owns a three-cent plot where it holds practice sessions every Sunday. Most of its members are working professionals, and some are students.
Neethu Syam was in Class 9 when she joined the team 17 years ago. “I am from a nearby area, Eranellur, and used to watch Chandiroor Maya’s programmes. They were different. They sang songs that were obscure yet catchy, and had a team so secure that everyone gave importance to education,” she gushes.
“That’s how I asked if I could join. Even during my hospital administration studies and internship, I used to be a regular at the Sunday training. I was fascinated when we were taught different folk forms such as Kudaoothu and Mudiyettu.”
Now pregnant and on a break from work, Neethu adds that she is eager to return to the team and jam on Sundays. “Many even bring their children. It’s such a lovely and energetic experience for us,” she smiles.
The team also has a dedicated research wing that scouts for old tunes, often through an informal network of contacts. Kamalasanan shares that team members have travelled deep into the tribal belts of Attappadi and into semi-urban areas to collect songs whenever they hear about them.
These songs are then documented, analysed, and taught by community experts if the songs are part of a living tradition.
“We have been trained by experts in folk arts such as Mangalamkali and Padayani. Our team includes not just singers, but percussionists and theatre artists too, who add to the musical presentations on stage,” says Kamalasanan.
“We, in turn, train students who participate in school arts festivals in the folk art category. It’s usually our students who win prizes. We have also performed across south India and the Andamans. One of our songs — ‘Modi Cheyyanumaru Arumal Swamy’ — has gone viral in Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka.”
Neethu hums ‘Shoorpanakhayennoru penne’, another popular number that gained fame after winning the National Youth Festival prize in the folk song category. “The student who presented it was trained by us,” she recalls.
The team is now working on a book that will chronicle about 750 songs collected from across the state, belonging to different communities and regions but all steeped in traditional splendour.
“It’s not name or fame that we seek. We even gave the rights to a channel that asked our permission to use a song we found and restored,” says Kamalasanan.
Neethu adds that anyone who joins Chandiroor Maya does so for the passion of learning what is rare and what once formed such a vital part of our lives.
“The tunes are so catchy and the dances so ebullient that our passion is constantly reignited. We’re all encouraged to pursue our studies and motivated to take up government jobs, which many of us do,” she says.
“Yet, we still look forward to Sundays, when we gather in our little space in the village. The paddy fields may have made way for construction, but the longing for the smell of the soil remains — alive and yearning for more of its magical tunes.”