Unknown melam fan

In the sea of wildly flaying limbs, I see his arms. There he is in the jostling crowd enjoying the paandi melam at Maradu temple festival. His arms are up in the air, active as usual, setting the tone for the melam rhythms. A languid smile lights up his thin mustachioed face as he stands there soaking up every nuance of the beats.

This piece is dedicated to an unknown man who I keep seeing at temple festivals. Wherever there is percussion–dominated temple ensemble or melam, in local parlance, in Ernakulam town and suburbs, he is invariably there.

By just looking at his arms you can gauge the changes in the rhythms. The melam proceeds at a leisurely pace and it seems a piece of cake for an avid melam devotee like him to judge the shift in the cadence.

His arm measures the rhythms and in between he extends it to signal the change in the tempo when all the instruments- chenda, elathalam, kombu and kuzhal join in unison. The slow and fast tempo alternates as the beats gather pace. In about two hours (sometimes it takes longer) the intervals between the ebb and flow of the orchestra disappears by which time the beating of chendas (drums) will reach a deafening high.

All this while he never loses focus and stands rooted to the spot in front of parasol-bearing caparisoned elephants lazily flapping their massive ears. His arms never get tired. If his right arm flags, the left one takes over.

As the pace of the melam quickens, so does his expressions. The smile is replaced by an ecstatic grin. Both his arms now come into play. His whole body sways slightly in tandem with the undulating beats. As the frenzied rhythms swell, he waves his arms and lets out a cry of joy inaudible in the thunderous reverberations of vigorous beating of chendas by over 100 performers and the roar of the cheering crowd. You have to make out the signs of mild shout from the puckering of his lips. I feel that the mela pramani,the chief drummer controlling the show,who in this case is none other than Peruvanam Kuttan Marar, picks up the cue for change in the cadence from this man's arms as he always stands face-to-face with the drummers.

The melam reaches a crescendo and then comes to a close. As the musicians pack up, he dissolves into the crowd as unobtrusively as he comes. I think of meeting him after the melams, but he has never given me a chance.

Whenever I go to listen to a temple melam, be it a panchaari, pandi or panchavaadyam, my eyes keep searching for this man’s face. It is probably easier to spot his arms as they will be precisely counting the rhythms. It is always a delight to watch him as he enlivens even a lull during a melam.