This story is from June 28, 2016

The past is another country

Each spot at Kavalam, be it the Vaaladikavu temple - where lower castes were not allowed and was the source of inspiration for the landmark play Avanavan Kadamba - or the Pookaitha river based on which he wrote his famous songs, have been intrinsically linked the artistic oeuvre of the poet.
The past is another country
File photo of Kavalam Narayana Panicker. (TOI photo: Rakesh Nair)
For Kavalam Narayana Panicker, culture and agriculture were two sides of the same song
It started drizzling as we entered Kainakary road that snaked through endless paddy fields and lakes studded with lotuses. At a distance, there was a farmer grazing a raft of ducks along the narrow paddy-path, perhaps ruminating about his lost lover, singing in a high pitch tone: vadakkathi pennale...
pennale... Kavalam Narayana Panicker was first and foremost a poet of nature, etching a lost paradise and poignant vignettes of rural life. His poetry had the rhythm of seasons, the joyful smell of rain-drenched earth, and the sadness and agony of the Kuttanad farmer, singing chakra pattu to forget the pain as he 'cycled' for hours on the giant water wheel to flush out water from the paddy fields.
Each spot at Kavalam, be it the Vaaladikavu temple - where lower castes were not allowed and was the source of inspiration for the landmark play Avanavan Kadamba - or the Pookaitha river based on which he wrote his famous songs, have been intrinsically linked the artistic oeuvre of the poet.
For the first 25 year of his life, Kavalam lived at the spacious Chalayil house, situated at the northern end of Lower Kuttanad. The Ettukettu -if preserved properly it could have been like Tagore's Jorasanko house with its spacious rooms, red tiled corridors and a majestic mango tree leaning into the courtyard.
But today no one stays here and the rooms are locked, the tiles are cracked and wooden window halfeaten by moths. "Kavalam ashan used to come here to conduct annual workshops called Kurunnukootam for children every year," says his long-time friend and assistant sub inspector K K Vijayakumar attached to the Kainady police station.
For Vijayakumar, the demise of the poet is a deep personal loss as Kavalam used to read the plays he wrote for children and the police department and give valuable suggestions.

In his later years, Kavalam was disappointed with what was happening to his beloved village that blended into the expansive Vembanad Lake, inspiring him to write such evocative lines like Karukara karmukhil komban aanapurathu..(Dark rain clouds hovered like a deity atop an elephant...) The poet constructed a small house on the banks of Pamba river at the farthest end of Kavalam and used to always brood on how polluted the river had become and how families in the neighbourhood became strangers.
"The unscientific construction of roads, filling up main canals stopped the free flow of water. This resulted in murky water filling up our wells," says Radhakrishna Panicker, a school teacher at NSS higher secondary school Kavalam, and Kavalam's relative.
The village, a good seven feet below sea level, cannot afford this destruction of wetlands. The result was that the pesticide residue of the entire region seeped into the groundwater of the fertile region.
"It was a paradise lost when they could have easily made the water transport network better. We used to have boats coming only once in two hours and so nobody questioned the filling up of water bodies for road," he says.
And with it, the images and rhythms that inspired the poet, be it the chakra pattu or koyathu pattu, disappeared with the mechanisation of farmlands. "The old vallams and languid boats songs have been replaced by air-conditioned houseboats blaring Bollywood music carrying tourists. There are 2,500 houseboats here and they dispose their wastes into the river," says advocate Anil Bose, convener Kuttanad Paiththruka Samiti.
He points out that they spew diesel which remain like a filament over water for weeks together. "During a recent medical camp it was found that the village had over 200 cancer patients, that too for a population of just 20,000 people," Bose says.
The poet was concerned about the slow death of Kuttanad over the years. He once said: "We should realise culture was born from agriculture. All my songs was rooted the soul of this region." Kavalam never had any formal training in music and learnt his art, observing the paddy farmer in Kuttanad who has a rhythm in everything act he performs, be it in ploughing, sowing or measuring rice. As he bends to measure a mound of rice, the farmer extends his one measure into a song, onnnuuuu, randuuuu... Similarly , while sowing paddy in the sweltering sun, the women break into a spontaneous chorus. And in the words of the poet: it was a form of communication or art that was one with nature.
With the passing away of Kavalam, it is this organic part of Kuttanad that has disappeared for ever.
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About the Author
Viju B

Viju B, assistant editor at The Times of India in Mumbai, writes on a range of issues including environment, civic infrastructure, insurance and right to information. He believes that his views are not sacrosanct -- nor are yours. The truth is somewhere in the middle, smiling beatifically at us. He feels that any form of fundamentalism, be it of the markets or the state, can be harmful.

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