Grace and grit

Every Tuesday and Thursday morning, at around 9.30, I ask myself existential questions. This is the time I get back home after an hour-and-a-half-long class of Kalaripayattu. Once I have braced myself for the ascent up a flight of stairs to my apartment and winced into a soft seat, I wonder, often aloud, why I continue to put myself through the swollen knees, the aching muscles and the sometimes excruciating pain. “And pay for that pain,” my mother reminds me, every time, over the phone.

Kalaripayattu is not a form of yoga. It isn’t karate either, or contemporary dance, or anything else anyone is tempted to draw parallels with. It is among the oldest martial art forms in the world and can be traced in mythology to Parashurama. After reclaiming land from the Arabian Sea to create the realm of Kerala, the sage is supposed to have established 108 kalaris — the traditional 21x42ft mud pit in which Kalaripayattu is practised. Much like in yoga, its martial origins are shrouded in mythology and mystery.

Kalaripayattu is said to have given birth to martial arts such as karate and kung fu. If the latter are outright fighting techniques, Kalaripayattu looks more like a dance, lethal during practice, but simply gorgeous when performed on stage.

“It is difficult to explain what Kalaripayattu is, you have to experience it,” says Ranjan Mullaratt, my guru at the Kalari Academy of Performing Arts in Bangalore. At a recent event to mark 15 years of the institution, Mullaratt’s students defy the laws of gravity and the limitations of the body to jump and twist, bend and crawl. They fight with swords, odd-shaped wooden weapons and the lethal urumi , the flexible whip-like sword which, unless wielded with fierce concentration, can decapitate the one wielding it!

The event showcases, among other sequences, the Ashtavadivu — eight movements that emulate the rooster, snake, horse, elephant, lion, cat, wild boar and peacock. Graceful as the movements are, they remind me of the weeks of difficulty I had in moving muscles previously unused as I was learning to tread the length of the classroom, bent like the lion. They make it look so easy.

The British banned Kalaripayattu when they arrived in Kerala, well aware how dangerous it could be even without weapons. Mullaratt tells me his guru learned Kalaripayattu in secret, like many others during the ban, using coconut fronds in lieu of swords. Post-Independence, it is yet to regain the popularity it enjoyed during the Chola and Chera reign, when Kalari warriors, mostly from the Nair community, were employed by kings and chieftains to fight, often till death, to settle the disputes of their employers. Yet, through word of mouth, people continue to take interest and join classes, says Mullaratt.

Popular culture gives the martial art form a boost, albeit a dubious one. The Malayalam film Oru Vadakkan Veeragatha , which tells of the legendary warriors Chandu and Unniyarcha, used Kalari extensively as did Kamal Hassan’s Tamil film Indian , which glorifies marma vidya and its potential to kill through pressure on a marma or vital point. “People ask if we can teach that in a week,” says Mullaratt. I ask if it is possible to kill using marma vidya , the study of the 108 sensitive points in the human body. “The knowledge of the marma points can be used to both heal a person and cause injury,” I am told. It is the last stage in Kalaripayattu training, after the urumi .

Several people come to class to improve stamina, balance and strength. Even as it retains its traditional moves, the full-body workout ensures that Kalaripayattu remains relevant in a modern setting. Dancers learn it for added grace. Movement artistes can learn balance and rigour from it. Strands of it are incorporated into contemporary performance arts. Much like a language, Kalaripayattu imbibes from its changing environment to accommodate newer derivations, all the while retaining its ancient idiom.

As for me, after some 15 years of practising yoga, the possibility of pain is what draws me to push my limits, like the translucent wings of the dragonfly burning at the edges of a flame. It is about the body burning in a battle where the mind wins. You take the pain because there is joy in looking down the mountain that you have just climbed. The view is fabulous, the air fresh and the soul smiling.

(Deepa Bhasthi is a Bangalore-based writer . )

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