Express Focus -- KERALA -- by Indian Express

January 18, 2001

Culture Chaos

It’s billed as Asia’s largest talent show of youth. But the Kerala State Schools’ Youth Festival is more known for the complaints and court cases filed every year by participants and their parents. Binu Karunakaran reports on the state’s most controversial arts festival

Ever heard of an art mafia? Welcome to the Kerala State Schools’ Youth Festival, billed as the largest cultural extravaganza in Asia, the 41st episode of which broke camp at Thodupuzha near Kochi on Sunday. The five days and four nights of the arts fete saw parents of talented kids battling it out uninhibited in the green rooms, hurling expletives at one another and filing appeals against almost every verdict that was presumed to be against them. Reportedly some of them even hired hoodlums to teach the gurus of other ‘shishyas’ a lesson.

Leave the parents alone. Ask the children who shuttle between venues kilometres apart, stuff themselves with glucose in between and compete in events as diverse as Kerala nadanam (dance) and Kannada recitation.

‘‘Parents are sure to intervene. Because everybody knows the shady deals in sub-district and revenue district youth festivals,’’ said Ambilidevi, a 10th-standard student who bagged the coveted Kalathilakam title at the youth festival.

‘‘Can we sit down and watch, when wheeler-dealers quote prices for every win?’’ asks the father of a girl student who participated in all the dance events. The most striking part of this year’s youth festival was the sharp increase in number of students who contested with appeals. More than 145 appeals (69 through deputy directors, education, and the rest through courts) came before the organisers before the youth festival. 64 appeals were filed during the course of the festival expressing mistrust in the judges and only 21 were rejected. The flood of appeals forced the authorities to throw the court directive regarding the midnight deadline to the winds. ‘‘We never anticipated this. Organising the festival was a complex affair but the flood of appeals had us in a fix,’’ said V.P. Joy, Director, Public Instruction.

‘‘It is the end of childhood in Kerala. We are talking of taking children to court in the name of art. This is completely against the principles of music and dance’’, says Tilottama Koshy, a dancer. ‘‘Scrap the grace marks and this would come of better. Dance and music is something connected with your soul. It has nothing to do with marks,’’ points out Tilottama.

But Malayalam writer K.L. Mohanavarma feels it is the pull of glamour which arrives as offers from television and cinema that is luring the parents go all out in the name of Kalathilakams and Kalaprathibhas. ‘‘The youth festivals are more like beauty contests or fashion shows now and are a preserve of the urban rich’’, says Varma. He says it is ironic that while the sporting talent in the state mostly hail from backward districts and small towns, talents in the fields of arts are always from the big towns.

‘‘There is an art mafia out there making and breaking the thilakams and prathibhas and the stages are being flooded with the tears of talented students,’’ says Payipra Radhakrishan, Malayalam writer who has also edited the festival souvenir, Kanavu. Do away with the over importance given to titles and take away the grace marks if the government wants to make a difference, urges Radhakrishnan.

‘‘The government should announce that the dance events would be held only in Kerala Kalamandalam from now on. Let the experts there decide and the appeals would come to an end. The festival would lose its sheen but the arts will have a better future,’’ says Malappuram team manager Padmanabhan who has been a regular visitor to the art fete for over 25 years.