Following a different beat

Deepa V and Nalini K are a rarity in Kerala. Both can play the male-dominated chenda. Now they are looking forward to bettering their skills

Pics: Nalini K (left) and Deepa V. Pics by Albin Mathew 

By Shevlin Sebastian

It’s 3 a.m. Deepa V wakes up with a start. She takes short breaths. Then she slowly calms down. But she sits up, puts the pillow on her lap and taps it rhythmically.

After 20 minutes, she feels a sense of calm descend on her. Then she lies down and goes to sleep. Deepa has this sense of nervousness and excitement because the next day is her arangettam (public stage debut) for the chenda (a drum-like percussion instrument) at the Thrikkakara Vamanamoorthy temple. Out of 19 debutants, she is the only woman.

The next day, September 1, at 9 p.m., Deepa is standing on the stage, clad in a white saree (settu mundu) and saffron blouse, a black bindi on her forehead, a gold necklace around her neck, gold earrings, and with a bunch of jasmine flowers in her hair. The chenda, which weighs 10 kgs, is being held at waist-level. On either side of her are the male drummers. They are all bare-bodied, and wearing white dhotis. A brass oil lamp, with its wicks all lit, has been placed on the red carpet in front.

Suddenly, in unison, the performers start beating the drums with a reddish-brown wooden stick using the right hand. The palm of the left hand is used to tap on the skin of the drum. The programme has begun. What is taking place is a Panchari melam (a percussion ensemble which only takes place inside a temple).

The other instruments which are being used are the ilathalam (pair of cymbals), kombu (wind instrument) and kuzhal (double-reed wind instrument). There are five stages, and these are based on beats totalling 96, 48, 24, 12 and 6 respectively. But for this programme, the group starts at 24 beats and goes downwards.

One-and-a-half hours hour later, the programme ends. And Deepa’s teacher Bijumon K Marar feels overwhelmed and hugs her. “I felt so happy when my master hugged me,” she says. Her children Govardhan (9 ½) and Govindan (7) also ran up to congratulate her.

But it all began so accidentally for Deepa. She wanted that Govardhan should learn the chenda. So, on most mornings at 7 a.m.., she would bring him to the temple. The boy took to the drums and two year later did his arangettam. But when it came to Govindan, he was not interested. So the teacher suggested that Deepa could also learn and that might encourage the boy to learn.

“So that’s how I started learning the chenda, in November 2018,” says Deepa. “I would practise daily from 7 a.m. to 8.15 p.m. When the daily Pantheeradi Puja began, we would have to stop.”

Initially, she would sit on the floor and hit a granite stone with the wooden stick, made of tamarind. “I did this for about ten months,” says Deepa. But there were many days when Deepa could not be present. One reason was because of her job.

She is an assistant news editor in a Kochi-based English language daily. After her night shift, when she would reach home, it would be 2 a.m. “I could sleep for only four hours,” she says. “Sometimes, I was so tired I could not hear the alarm. So I would miss the classes.”

But in the last month, before the arangetram, Deepa had to pull out all the stops. There were practice sessions from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. “The first 15 days, I took half-day leave,” says Deepa. Then during the last week before the performance, Deepa was on leave as she began practising on the chenda for the first time.

And today Deepa feels happy. “I feel so confident now,” she says. “I believe that women have a lot of calibre but too many blocks are put up by society. And women also put restrictions on themselves. But through the chenda, I am breaking my mental inhibitions one by one.”

Another woman who has broken her inhibitions is Nalini K. After her husband’s death four years ago, in Kozhikode, she came to Kochi to stay with her daughter Deepthi, who works at Info Park. Every now and then she would go to the Thrikkakara Vamanamoorthy temple. And during the festival season she would gravitate towards the chenda players.

It brought her memories of her childhood. Her home was adjoining the Kothamangalam Vishnu Temple. She would hear the sounds of the chenda. “I would use a stick and hit on the utensils and make a similar sound,” she says.

One day, at the temple, she approached Biju Asan and asked whether she could learn. He said, “Why not?” And that was how in August, 2017, she began going for an hour’s daily practice at 7 a.m.

And slowly, Nalini regained her purpose in life. “It brought me a great deal of happiness,” says Nailini. “I had a lot of health issues. When my sister would call, I would cry. But all my physical ailments and fluctuating moods vanished when I began playing.”

And when she put a video of her drumming in the family WhatsApp group, they gave kudos to her.

Her arangettam took place in August, 2018. “It was the first day of the devastating floods,” she says. “But our show took place.”

She is now moving towards the second level. Deepa also intends to carry on playing. “My goal is to reach the higher levels of the art and play alongside reputed artists,” she says.

And Bijumon is the happiest of the lot. “For centuries, it was only men who played the instrument,” says Bijumon, who has taught more than 500 students for free at the temple for 15 years . “Out of this number, there has been only 15 females. I am so glad Deepa and Nalini have become proficient. It will encourage other women.”