Mashh, Sathyavan-Savithri and me - A look back...

In 1982, we came back from Indonesia after a stint of about 6 years.For about a month we stayed in Adakkaputhur, my home village before venturing out to find a suitable location to settle down.

During this time, we happened to go to Kalamandalam to watch a kathakali performance. Probably it is from there my daughter Daisy picked up a liking for Kathakali. She wanted to learn Kathakali and when we started staying in Asalpha in 1983 (in 1982 we stayed in Vikhroli), we started looking for someone to teach her Kathakali. A mutual friend introduced us to Sri Gopalakrishnan – He was teaching in Nalanda Dance Research Center - to us and he agreed to come to Asalpha and teach Daisy.

In the meantime, we saw a drama by Sri Ravindranath Tagore. My old love for Kathakali had already got a revival and after seeing the drama, I started thinking that this is a good theme for a Kathakali play (aattakatha).

I started looking for the book in English translation but couldn’t find one.

I had started touring a lot on work. During every travel, I would look for the book but I couldn’t find it. And as I had lot of spare time in the evenings (after work, come back to hotel and rest, was the routine wherever I went.  Slowly the urge to write an attakkatha had grown a lot in my mind.

I remembered listening to a radio musical drama ‘Savithri’ by Sri N V Krishna Varier. Sathyavan – Savithri story is well known and I felt that that is also good theme for Kathakali.

I started writing during the evenings.

One day the notebook (a real notebook – not a laptop) was lying on the teapoy.  Maash (we all at home called him Maash), after teaching Daisy that day, took the note book and said.

‘Narayanetta, I am taking this with me’

‘After a couple of weeks, he again said one day, ‘We will present it.’

Then things moved faster. We had a singing session where he sang the whole thing, recorded it, scrutinized it, and made corrections as necessary.

So, finally it was presented in Bharathiya Music Society hall in Matunga. Mashh himself was Sathyavan. Dr. Sunanda Nair, the well known exponent of Mohini aattam (She was a student of Mashh in Nalanda at that time) acted as Savithri and Shri Udyogamandal Vikraman  was Yama. The singing duo were Sri Kalanilayam Sethumadhavan and Sri Kalamandalam Ananthanarayanan.

Mashh organized the whole thing including bringing in the Kalakshethram banner after discussing with many people including Kunnam Vishnuettan a prominent enthusiast in Dombivli.

The Kathakali saparya of Kalakshethram also started from there. The energy of Mashh was so  contagious that Kalakshethram started growing up well. Today he has a group of students who do number of performances and share stage with eminent artists from Kerala.  He had conducted lecture-demonstrations in various parts of Mumbai helping to evolve a good audience.

He choreographed one more aattakatha written by me, ‘Naranathu Bhraanthan’. Both the aattakkathas were staged on a few occasions both in Mumbai and Palakkad.

Today the Shashtipoorthy – sixteth birthday - of Mashh is being celebrated and we wish him all success in future endeavours .