Friends,
One of the most memorable events in the annals of our Puducherry Yatra was the performance of a magnificent folk dance drama of Kaliyattam. It would be incomplete if we didn’t include this in our diary.
The performance was arranged by our Pondi host, the amazingly resourceful Lalit Verma, who is truly the rightful ‘icon’ of Pondi!
The dance drama took place at Lalit’s Krytashraya Garden House where Sutra had performed countless times over the last two decades since we came to Pondi.
I remember improvising to the singing of Parvathy Baul to Kabir’s song watched by the famous Eugenio Barba. On another occasion I had improvised to pianist Anil Srinivasan’s rendition of a thillana on a grand piano.
The Kaliyattam dance drama depicted non-other than Kali, the terrific manifestation of the Mother Goddess, who was conceived to annihilate evil forces in the form of demons.
Kali performs her gorified dance on cremation grounds where she is the personification of Death itself.
What was the most impressive was the amazing make-up and costume of the actors who were depicted in full magnificent regalia and colours. As they pranced, swayed and gesticulated menacingly to the intense beat of the drums and piercing shriek of the Nadaswaram, the culmination was the encounter of the two primordial manifestations of good verses evil, both in their fabulously terrifying forms.
Eventually Evil was vanquished by Kali with a piercing thrust of the Trisula. (I had suggested to the Manager it would be more current and effective (and easier) if he had just changed the demon persona to that of Demon Donald).
The Puducherry chapter, organised by Aurodhan Art Gallery, offered an immersive experience of India’s living traditions—from the powerful Kaliyattam folk performance to Lalit Verma’s photography exhibition on the Purna Maha Kumbh Mela 2025, accompanied by a documentary, earlier screened at the Festival de Cannes, specially presented to HH Tunku Zain, the Malaysian guests, and Puducherry dignitaries.
Ramli