THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: ‘’Pappisorey thanka pappisorey...’’ Nanjamma sings in full throated ease. The words mean ‘Oh! a nice man had passed away.’ In tune with her sharp voice, dance a team of ‘Irulas,’ around the corpse of a fellow being, ‘celebrating’ the death of their beloved. The tribal group of the Attappadi village of Palakkad, performs ‘Irula Nritham’, the tribal dance form, during festivals, harvesting, after a person’s death and during funeral rites. A 16-member team of Irulas had come all the way from Palakkad to the Capital City to perform at the Natyolsavam-2011, the dance festival organised by the Guru Gopinath Natana Gramam at the Nisagandhi Auditorium, on Thursday. The dance form bears a proud legacy carried through generations. Pazhaniswami S, an ‘Irula Nirtham’ performer and the president of the Irula dance troupe ‘Azad Kala Sangham’ in Attapdi, says, ‘’this dance form is a joyous celebration. Even death is celebrated by offering a happy journey to the deceased to the other world. We start dancing around the body from the moment just after the death till it is taken to the funeral pyre.’’ The Irula community had migrated from Tamil Nadu years back. Irula Nritham has the history of a period when abundance and prosperity ruled their world. The peaceful evenings after supper witnessed the whole group gather in a circle and sing and dance hailing the good times. The songs are a mixture of Malayalam, Tamil, Kannada and Telegu languages. Traditional costume for ‘Irula Nritham’ include ‘mula kacha’ for women dancers. ‘Kasumala’, cylindrical ornaments around elbows and ankles are supposed to be worn by them. Men appeared in ‘Jubba’ and ‘Mundu’. The dance is staged to the accompaniment of instruments such as ‘thavil’, ‘porey’, an earthen pot, ‘kokal’, a wind instrument, and ‘jaala.’ Irula team performed in Orissa and Chennai some years ago at cultural programmes and brought out an audio CD ‘Namuthu Naadu Melenadu’ comprising 13 songs of the dance. ‘’We were able to include some songs in the CD that have faded into the oblivion. Students have started performing the dance form in school fests after the CD was released,’’ says Ramakrishnan M, vice-president of the Kala Sangham. The team wishes to showcase their talent at international level with the support of the government.
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