Kalamandalam Prabhakaran is the one of the oldest gurus of Thullal in the State School Arts Festival circuit.
Hundreds of his disciples have done wonders at the festival over the past 30 years. An expert in all the three genres of Thullal — Ottan, Parayan, and Seethankan — many of the-new generation gurus call him Dronacharya. He has been an inspiration, they say.
Recalling the changes he had seen in the field over the years, this septuagenarian feels that the changes are all good for the art form.
“Thullal was not this colourful those days, neither was it this professional. There were no specialised gurus. Some teacher at the school will just teach the students a few steps based on one of Kunchan Nambiar’s works with not much understanding of the art form. The costume used to be pieces of white cloth tied around the body. Only after the Kalamandalam started having courses in Thullal did the situation change. Once the people trained at Kalamandalam started sending their students to the arts festival, the untrained teachers retreated slowly,” Mr. Prabhakaran says.
Over the past 10 years, Thullal has become more colourful than ever. “We now realise that attractiveness is key to survival. Now, a lot of students are coming forward to learn Thullal, which was not the case when I started off,” he says.
‘Santhanagopalam’ is the most sought-after piece by students. It has great scope for facial expression. However, Mr. Prabhakaran prefers the comic aspects of Thullal than the seriousness of ‘Santhanagopalam.’
His three children had been winners at the festival, all of whom performed the lighter numbers. He had eight of his students performing in the high school girls’ category on Monday. Two of them were performing Seethankan Thullal and one, Parayan Thullal.
The rest of the five stuck to the most-popular, Ottan Thullal.
