Kunchan Nambiar

Kunchan Nambiar spent his early childhood at Killikkurussimangalam in Kerala state, south India, his boyhood at Kudamaloor and his youth at Ambalappuzha. Scholars like Guru Mani Madhava Chakyar have the opinion that he and the Sanskrit poet Rama Pānivāda are the same. (Pānivāda means Nambiar in Sanskrit ). In 1748 he moved to Thiruvananthapuram, first to the court of Martanda Varma and later to the court of Kartika Tirunal Rama Varma. He had already written several of his works before leaving Ambalapuzha.He was the master of satirist poetry. The chief contribution of Nambiar is the invention and popularization of a new performing art known asThullal. The word literally means "dance", but under this name Nambiar devised a new style of verse narration with a little background music and dance-like swinging movement to wean the people away from the Chakkiyar Koothu, which was the form popular till then. He was to use pure Malayalam as opposed to the stylized and Sanskritized language of Koothu. He also adopted many elements from Padayani or Kolam Thullal and certain other folk arts. It is reasonable to assume that he was himself a performer. The firsthand knowledge of the various thalasand ragas and even the practices of drummers is a pre-requisite for the writing of a Thullal. Kunchan Nambiar possessed this in abundance. Each Thullal composition consists of a Puranic tale retold in simple rhythmic verse, fit for loud recitation before an audience. There are three kinds of Thullal distinguished on the basis of the performer's costume and the style of rendering, viz., Ottan, Seethankan and Parayan. Dravidian metres are used throughout although there is nothing to prevent the insertion of a quatrain in a Sanskrit metre. Nambiar also developed new metres (e.g. Vaythari metres) based on the vocal notation for various talas. The language also is predominantly Malayalam with a large admixture of colloquial and dialectal forms. Humour is invariably the dominant mood: other bhavas are brought in for variety and to suit the situation.

One of the oft-quoted lines from his poems is "Nokkeda nammude margey kidakkunna markada neeyangu maari kida saddha". (In Nambiar's retelling of the Mahabharatham, Bhima tells Hanuman to move from his way, by saying "Go lie elsewhere, you obstinate monkey").

-- In one of his poems, "Kaalanillatha Kaalam" (roughly translated as 'Time Without Any Death'), Nambiar wonders how life would be if there were no death. He sees homes crowded with ever-shrinking aged ancestors.

-- "Thottodiya Pada" is a poem that describes in witty detail how an army retreats from a losing battle.

[edit]Extracts from Kunchan Nambiar's poems/writings

Kunchan Nambiar is believed to have written over forty Thullal composition. Some scholars allot a larger number to his credit. They belong to all the three types: 21 Otttan, 11 Seethankan and 9 Parayan. The most important of Nambiar's Thullals are: Syamantakam, Ghoshayatra, Kiratam, Santanagopalam, Patracharitam, Kartaviryarijunavijam, Bakavadham, Kalyana Saugandhikam, Hariniswayamvaram, Tripuradakanam and Sabha Pravesam. Nambiar was an extrovert and observed the life around very closely. He was also very critical of the social evils he saw around him. Thus even when the main story is from the Puranas, he would introduce digressions in plenty and use such occasions to

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