Day Four is when I have planned a day long trip to Kalamandalam, Kerala’s best kept secret. Its one of the finest art and music educational institutions imparting training in varied music and artistic forms including mridangam, kathakali, mohiniattam, thullal, kuchipudi, mizhavam etc.
It’s a promise I made to myself when I visited the institute six years ago, while working on a travel show. We shot an episode at the school and I had promised myself I would come back to absorb the place in more detail (the crummiest way to see a place is to work on a travel show, I assure you, you are too busy getting the best shots, to be able to take out time!)
It’s as beautiful as I remember it. I guess half the OMG factor of visiting such a place is the fact that even in this day and age, there are people who study dance and music at such an intense level for most of their educational life. They study from Class six right up to the time they graduate. In the last two years, they have also introduced a post graduate level degree.
You feel like an intruder watching a class in progress, no matter that neither the teacher nor the student seem to realize your presence for the first ten minutes of your being there. They are so engrossed in the class taking place. One boy practicing the chenda starts to consistently mess up his timing on the drums after performing well for the first ten minutes and we discreetly walk away.
In one of the classes which mostly has boys aged about 11 or 12, all the students are playing on wooden stands that will make do for real drums for the next two years. Until their hands get calloused and used to the rigors of drumming…
Tags: Kalamandalam, Kerala
