Thirra performers: cast in, caste out

Thirra artist, M.K. Kelukutty, once plucked a leaf from a tree during a performance in a sacred grove. “He was told to pay four annas for having ‘polluted’ the place. It didn’t matter that he was performing as a god when this happened,” recalls his grandson, M. K. Kunjiraman.

Thirra artists are people from scheduled caste communities, and although welcomed as performers in upper caste temples, these places are off limits. This ceremonial dance is performed in kaavu or sacred groves, as well as the premises of a temple. But entering or performing where the deity is kept, is out of bounds.

Kunjiraman is from the Vannan community, those who traditionally washed clothes, generally of the upper castes. They are listed as Scheduled Caste in Kerala. He was a young boy when he began accompanying his father and grandfather, both Thirra artists. He finally started performing in his early forties.

“Talachilon, Kariyathan, Kuttichathan, Vettakorumakan, Kannikakaruvon…” the 87-year-old reels off names of Hindu deities he enacted.

And then Kunjiraman begins to sing the ‘Anjadi’ and ‘Tottam Pattu’. The first is sung to invoke the God who will take hold of the dancer’s body and the second narrates the history of Kuttichathan. Although some scholars say that Tottam Pattu invokes the goddess Bhagavathi and not Kuttichathan, who is worshipped for protection and prosperity. He is depicted with eight pulli (dots) on his chest.

His musical voice fills the space. “Kuttichathan was born to a valluva [lower caste] mother and a Namboodiri [Brahmin] father. Once, when he was a boy, he felt very hungry. He had been starving for a long time. He then killed a buffalo from his herd and drank its blood. Furious, his father killed him and cut him into 399 pieces,” narrates Kunjiraman.

He is seated on the veranda of his two-storey house in Sivapuram village in Kozhikode. “That is how we have so many Kuttichatan today – Pookutti, Teekutti, Karikutti,” he tells this reporter.

Mimicking the beats of a chenda (percussion instrument), he is drumming on the seat of a chair. He speaks of Naayikettu – a prachannavesham (character who appears in the interlude of a Thirra performance to entertain the audience). “I am probably the last person to perform this character,” says the now elderly performer.

Held widely in north Kerala from mid-December to April, some of the performances, like the Bhagavati Thirra, last 24 hours with breaks in between. Others begin at midnight or later, and end in the early hours of dawn.

Performances take place in the outer area of the temple or the temple groves – an open space where caste hierarchies are set aside for the duration of the performance. But not always. “If the kaavu [grove] is controlled by a Namboodiri or Nair [upper castes], things are different,” points out Kunjiraman.

Agreeing with him about the caste lines in this, Swamidasan, also a Thirra artist, recalls a time when people from his Panan community could never even share the same road with the upper caste patrons of the temple. But when they performed there, dressed as a God in Thirra, the same people come bowing before them.

Swamidasan is from the Panan community (listed as Scheduled Caste in Kerala). He is acutely conscious of Thirra’s political role, and says that is what impels him to perform. Ruffling the hair of his granddaughter just home from school he adds, “we developed this consciousness, and we cannot let them [upper castes] hijack even the gods.”

He believes Thirra was formed out of the privileged castes’ need for entertainment. “That is why they do not let us into the premises of the deity, even during the times when we are the ‘God’,” he adds.

He performed Bhagavati Thirra at an upper caste Narakassery Nair temple in the village. A few steps below where he was performing, sat the temple’s deity, and he was stopped from going to that part of the temple.

“Ayithham [untouchability] is still there. Be it a kaavu or a temple, if the owners belong to the upper caste, there is untouchability,” he says while pointing in the direction of the temple in his village, about 300 metres from his home in Nanmanda village in Kozhikode, Kerala.

The 73-year-old is a retired tehsildar. “There is some element of ‘noble resistance’ we found in [performing Thirra],” says Swamidasan, referring to how the art could be used by communities to counter caste hierarchies. “If Thirra is 100 per cent spiritual it would not have survived. I think it is part social, part cultural, part political and part spiritual,” he says.

“Earlier, no one was allowed to perform at temples that are not a part of one’s own desham [locality],” says Cheruvottu Balan, a Thirra artist from the Vannan community. “Can anyone live by just relying on the income from a single temple? But things have changed,” he adds. Today artists perform at different temples.

Balan, now almost 90 years old, has been performing for almost seven decades. Recent photographs of him in Thirra attire are framed and kept on a shelf in his single-storey house in Nanmanda village in Calicut district.

Balan started in his early twenties in the temple where his family performed. Today he has a troupe – members are from the Vannan community. He says his children and grandchildren have never performed. What was earlier a matter of compulsion is today a choice for families like his.

Earlier, the art did not bring in cash, as the mode of payment was not money. Performers like Balan and Kunjiraman’s grandfathers were given rice, oil or jackfruit. But today a troupe earns around Rs.50,000 to 80,000, depending on the number of performances. The amount is then distributed among the artists and musicians associated with the performance, and a performer can earn around Rs. 2,000-3,000 for a show.

Prajeesh, an auto driver and Thirra artist from Chelavoor village in Kozhikode says he learnt Thirra at the age of 13 and now performs with multiple troupes. “It is hard to survive by merely performing Thirra during the short span of three months, so everyone is engaged in different jobs. They take a day off or adjust shifts to come and perform,” says Prajeesh. A Vannan, he doesn’t want his child to follow in his footsteps. “I ask my child not to get into Thirra, unless he can manage both studies and performance, because income from this is never stable.”

In the months leading up to the event, the entire household fasts and prays, becoming a part of the event. “Women in the family, whenever and wherever a jackfruit was plucked, stored the jackfruit resin to use as gum for the Thirra attire,” Kunjiraman recalls.

Kaippani – the art of making accessories, has the involvement of people from different communities. Then there is the costume of the Thirra artist which is elaborate: traditional, thiruvudayada (sacred clothes) clothes washed in rice broth, mudi (hair of God) made from shells, coconut leaf, and areca nut sheath, for mukhathezhuth (face painting) and melezhuth (body writing), the white is arichand (rice paste), yellow from turmeric and red from a mix of limestone and turmeric.

Before the performance, many of the gods are offered toddy by an elder from the Tandan community (listed as Other Backward Classes in the state). People from different caste-based occupations contribute during the show: there are marar (percussion artists, performing in temples), and aasaari (carpenter), moosaari (metalsmiths), perumkollan (master blacksmith) and thattan (goldsmith) among others.

And Thirra (God himself), expresses gratitude to people from all caste backgrounds who contributed to the performance in the Vaakkenal -- recited after the performance.

The Oonasharam recital during the lunch is part of the recital. It acknowledges – and reminds every one -- of their traditional occupations.

In a way, it is a subtle reminder of how the system ensures people adhere to their traditional roles.