‘Nayika, The Eternal Love’, a music video, fuses a Swathi padam into a Kathakali recital

Carnatic vocalist Sangeetha N Rao says she visualises a song in her mind as she renders it to make it an evocative experience for her listeners.

As a great admirer of the padams composed by Swathi Thirunal and of abhinaya sangeetham, she had often wished she could visualise a Swathi Thirunal padam in the Kathakali format. She says: “I believe that music and dance complement each other beautifully and that’s when a recital feels complete.”

Many of the Swathi padams have already been choreographed by renowned Bharatanatyam and Mohiniyattam dancers. “I have seen and enjoyed many of the performances. I wanted to conceptualise one in the Kathakali format and that too from a woman’s perspective.”

The royal composer-musician’s descriptive padam(s) touch upon different kinds of devotion to the main deity of the Sree Padmanabhaswamy temple in Thiruvananthapuram.

Explains Sangeetha: “Of his many padams, one of my favourites is ‘Panimathi mukhi baale’ in Ahiri raga, which is based on ‘madhura bhakthi’. It speaks of the composer’s ardent wish to be one with the Lord. The King portrays himself as a ‘Nayika’ seeking reunion with the Lord.”

A brief narrative explains the essence of the composition, that of a Nayika, dressed in her finery, waiting impatiently for her lover in vain. She complains to her friend about the wait while her companion consoles her, praising her looks and beauty.

Sangeetha sought the help of veteran Kathakali exponent Kalamandalam Chambakkara Vijayakumar. He says he made it clear to Sangeetha that he would choreograph a piece that stayed within the artistic framework of Kathakali.

Stills from ‘Nayika, The Eternal Love’ featuring Kalamandalam Chambakkara Vijayakumar as the Nayika
| Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRAGEMENT

He elaborates: “To do anything else would be an insult to the great art tradition that one takes years to master. Instead of performing vague dance steps in a Kathakali costume, as one sees in many films, I was determined to perform it as a pristine Kathakali performance set to the Swathi padam.”

Chaste Kathakali

The veteran waited for 10 hours, all made-up and dressed, for the nine-minute video. ‘Nayika’, which was shot at Ozhukil Mana in Palakkad district, is an aesthetic presentation enhanced by Sangeetha’s melodious music.

While Vijayakumar appears as the Nayika, Kalamandalam Radhakrishnan dons the role of Krishna and FACT Bhaskar as the companion ( thozhi).

The video will be released on YouTube on March 31 by Carnatic vocalist Sreevalsan J Menon and music composer Bijibal.

This is the third such music-dance video conceptualised by Tripunithura-based Sangeetha, who works as a support vocalist for Mohiniyattam in RV College of Music, Tripunithura.

Her first video was based on a Saraswathi kriti in Saraswathi raga, which she had composed. “It was a pushpanjali presented as a Bharatanatyam recital and choreographed by Abbad Ram Mohan, a former student of RLV college. The next was a bhajan and a Swathi padam. It was not centred on a theme,” she says.