Couples' lives take a Dramatic Twist

When the rain played hide and seek outside, the backstage at the Cosmopolitan Club in Kozhikode witnessed flurried activity. Anxieties of freshers were writ large on the faces of the members of the theatre group 'What Is In A Name' while waiting eagerly for their turn to perform scenes from Shakespeare's world famous plays.

Sleep walking scene from Machbeth:Photo by K Shijith

However, as soon as the compere finished the announcement, the fear of unfamiliarity faded away and consequently set the stage on fire with their stunning performance. Five couples-cum-friends who never had any exposure to drama, stole the hearts of spectators by enlivening the revenge, madness, romance, tragedy and adventure of Shakespeare's characters.
Interestingly, the troupe , that staged its maiden performance is an outcome of one of those lazy weekend partying of the couples. It was an initiative from the part of Fajeena, a teacher by profession, who had attended Jayaprakash Kuloor’s drama workshop conducted under the aegis of the Indo-Anglian Theatre of the Malabar Christian College, that ended up in the formation of new theatre troupe.

Romeo and Juliet:Photo by K Shijith

"My friends have shown great enthusiasm when I presented the topic before them and thus formed the theatre troupe including five couples with the support of two of our common friends," said an excited Fajeena, who gave life to the sleepwalking scene of Shakespeare's tragedy ‘Macbeth’. "The rehearsal that began at 10 pm usually stretched up to 3 to 4 am," said Fajeena. "It was Jayaprakash Kuloor, who nurtured and instilled confidence in each one of us to take up challenges," she said.

Scene from Antony and Cleopatra.Photo by K Shijith

The late night practice and workshop under Jayaprakash groomed them individually and helped them to keep their inhibitions at a bay.
"I was not convinced when Fajeena approached me with the idea. But many of them amazed me with their ability to act and deliver dialogues," said Jayapraksh Kuloor, dramatist, who trained the artistes.

Famous bed room scene from Shakespeare's play Photo by K Shijith

Sharing the joy, Jamshad , a planter by profession who enacted the character of Mark Antony in the show, said It was a wonderful experience. Sucharita, who stunned the audience by playing the character Ophelia, said the programme had deepened the bonding among them.

A wonderful day in my life

It was a cold morning of September 14 . We, twelve member group comprising journos and officials of Indian Institute of Spices Research (IISR) left the city at 5.45 am to the farm land of P Abdul Nabeel at Addolippura in Chamarajanagar district in Karnataka. The filed visit was organised by the IISR as part of its National Agriculture Innovation Project (NAIP) Sub- project on mobilising mass media support for sharing agro- information.
After more than five hours of tiring jounery we reached there around 11 am. Though the Chamarajanagar municipal administration has constructed roads, the bullock-cart was a common site in the sleepy village. The yellow and green fields on either sides of roads, muddy narrow pocket roads, shadow tress planted in between cultivation lands added picturesque charm to the entire place.
Nabeel cultivated banana, yarm, and turmeric on 17-acres of land. He not even left an inch of land in his farm . He even planted chilly and tomato plants in between his four acre turmeric field and 10 acres of banana field.
Nabeel an innovative farmer and a native of Meyppayur village in Koyilandy Taluq of Kozhikode has succeeded in cultivating `Prathiba turmeric' variety of IISR in a traditional Kerala agriculture method in Karnataka. He is one among farmers in the region who made optimum use of water leakage from the Swarnavathy dam for the farming. Nabeel , a post graduate in Hindi, Calicut University left his teacher job to become a full time farmer last year.
The profit from turmeric cultivation lured him to take up its farming in a larger scale. Nabeel who is into farming for the past six years is expecting a bumper harvest of 130 tonnes from 17 acres of land.
Though his first attempt of tapioca cultivation incurred him huge loss he decided to concentrate on turmeric cultivation when he happened to come across an article on improved ginger and turmeric varieties developed by IISR , Kozhikode. He then approached the Experimental Farm of IISR at Peruvannamuzhi for seed rhizomes of turmeric and ginger.
In 2004 he procured 100 kg of Prathiba variety of turmeric and 50 kg of Varatha variety of ginger from IISR and cultivated on a lease of 1.5 acres of land at Mepayur. The harvest he got from the cultivation encouraged him to sow all his two tonnes of turmeric and one tonne of ginger produce and got an yield of 25 tones of turmeric and two tones of ginger from the next harvest.
That was just the beginning of his journey and his association with IISR created good rapport with scientists of the institute. The advice of scientist in using manures and fertilizers and visit to field of farmers helped hom to grow as a successful farmer. His association with IISR also helped him to find a market for seed rhizomes in Kudumbasree units and government organisations.
Considerably less investment in farming , fertility of land and less labour charge made him to move to Karnataka to take up turmeric cultivation in a larger scale last year. He spend Rs.15 lakh to take up farming in Karnataka.
He has already received order of seedlings from National Horticulture Research Development (NHRD) for the turmeric growing in Karnataka.
In future he is planning to expand the turmeric cultivation. He has already bought 25-acres of lease land at Basappura to grow the turmeric on 10 acres and banana on 15 acres land.
The trip has gifted a rejuvenated feeling and energy of Nabeel has also flown to us giving a wonderful day that gifted new friends.

Gracefull steps

The City that has been bustled with shopping activities during the Onam celebration has also witnessed some of the finest performance of classical dance in the evening. The classical dance performance of the actors Veenith and Lakshmi Gopalaswami at Swapna Nagari during the onam days in Kozhikode.

Stills from dance festival began in Kozhikode on Feb 28

Photos by Rakesh
Stills from the dance festival `Soundharyalahari' began at the Gujarathi Hall in Kozhikode February 28. The Delhi based troupe performed the cosmic dance of siva on the inaugural day.

Seeking liberation through words

When I went, Jecintha Joseph, the novelist who had eloped from the literary field after penning down down 55-novels in Malayalam was busy shifting to a new house at East Hill in Kozhikode. She answered the repeated sounds of the calling bell with a smile on her face . ``Just come in, I was waiting for you,'' she said. As I accompanies her to the living room, she informed that she will be shifting to her new house at East Hill on next day.

The novelist was living with her daughter in Kozhikode for the past two-and-half years. She moved from Kollam to Kozhikode when her daughter Anju secured admission at the East Hill Government Engineering College. ``I come along with Anju as I couldn't sleep even a single night without her,'' she said out of motherly affection. Besides, she wanted loneliness to concentrate fully on writing since she is planning for a come back to the literary field after a long break.

The 52-year-old novelist, who started writing at the age of twelve believes life is all about love and helping others in need, has penned down 55-novels, 125-short stories, 25-screenplays and seven radio dramas so far. She even wrote a script for a drama.

She wrote majority of her works before getting married to Telesco of Kollam in 1987. She was very much active in the field till her marriage. Gradually lack of interest from her husband detached her from the world of words which she loved more than her life.

``At times I found it even difficult to take breath,'' said Jecintha in a low voice.

Though she feels the personal turmoil played a villain in her writing profession, she never let others know about it. Her smile which resembles that of a child helped her bury everything deep inside her heart.

She had also won numerous awards including Nana award for her screenplay ``Theeram thedunna Thiragal''.

The writer who is longing for a come back has written a screenplay for film and talks are on which can't be discussed at this stage, she replied to an answer about my question on present projects. She said she is planning to write a novel on Kozhikode. ``I like the city and the people very much,'' she quipped. Well she is even have a dream of directing a movie, she said.

Jecintha who consider writer Kakkanadan as her mentor said she will write an autobiography. ``I believe honesty of writer and I want to say the truth,'' she said.

Lessons from experiences

The recently held 50th edition of state school youth festival in the district has certainly showed how to report an event without knowing even ABCD of it. Luckily in our office the practice of assiging duty for reporters is not there. The worst were the Journos in Malayalam newspapers. They didn't had even time to study the items before reporting. We ourself picked the dance and music items we liked the most to cover. So I took the events in which I had knowledge and staged during my school days. So that there wont be much problem for it. But still love for Ottamthulal made me to opt for that event. I have watched Ottamthullal only on DD. Well, my decision of cover Ottamthulal had proved heavily for me due to the language problem . Sheer facination for the art form and confidence in me made me to take an extreme step of attempt to write about the event.
I rarely speaks with journos in other Media as I always fear that they might take my words in wrong way after hearing my Malayalam language. I was born and brought up in Kasargod where we use the medium of local Malayalam language for communication. That too rarely. Plus my parents and most of our family members were studied in Kannada medium. And whoever we communicate using either Kannada or the Tulu language. So I hardly made any effort to improve or understand the original Malayalam language.
As you know, Ottamthullal popularly known as the `Poor man's Kathakali' has a single actor, donning a green make-up and wearing colouful costumes. The artists recites the Thullal lyrics while acting and dancing himself on stage. For me it was difficult one as they never gave introduction for the performance they going to enact on the stage. My very little knowledge in Malayalam made me difficult even to follow the reciting of songs even after I went there to report the event after thorough preparation. Somehow I managed to write and I even wrote a feature on Kalamandalam Geethanandan who had trained more than 500 students to reach the state school youth festival for the New Indian Express special pull out.
Well, that day I decided to learn the Malayalam language in depth. Hmmm, experience in life make us learn and grow.

Stage is set for the annual cultural extravaganza

Kozhikode `the city of truth' is known for its love for art and culture . This year too the annual cultural festival will be held like earlier but with a difference. This year, the denizens and lovers of art will get an opportunity to see the stunning performance of some of the big names in the Indian Entertainment industry in the 2010 edition of the Malabar Mahotsavom.

The six-day cultural extravaganza will be inaugurated by the Union Minister for Tourism Kumari Selija at the Beach Open air stage on February 9. The annual cultural extravaganza organised to revive the Indian dance culture will be held in the seven venues of the city from February 9 to 14th.

The inaugural function will be followed by the performance of noted Bharatanatyam dancer Malika Sarabhai. The art lovers will get an opportunity to watch the breath taking performance of the some of the best artists including Malayalm playback singer K J Yesudas, pop singer Daler Mehandi, bharatanatyam exponent Malika Sarabhai, Ghazal mastero Talat Aziz and many others. The Delhi based rock band Euphoria troupe will also enthrall the audience with thier hit numbers.

The six-day gala event will be staged in seven venues including Mananchira, Town hall, Commonwealth ground, Jaya auditorium, Marine ground and stadium. The martial art form and folk art forms will be staged at the Mananchira ground. Artists form Karnataka, Assam, Karnataka, Rajasthan and West Bengal will enthrall the spectators with their traditional folk dance.

In Town hall, literary festival will be held from Feb 10 to 13 evening 5 pm to 7 pm and drama festival will be held from 7 pm to 10 pm.The classical dance and carnatic music concert will be staged at Jaya auditorium.

Another attraction of the festival will be the exhibitions organised in the stadium premises. Around 100-stalls will be erected at the exhibition venue. The stalls of Agriculture department, Sericulture, animal husbandry, dairy development and fisheries department will put up their stalls in the exhibition. A food festival showcasing the malabar cuisines will also be held at the Marine ground during the Malabar mahotsavam.

So why thinking much, just borad in to the next train or bus to watch the stunning performace of your favourite artist:)