Kochi, Dec 14: Layers of multi-cultural civilisations
have enriched the cosmopolitanism of Kochi over centuries, but scripting their
history warrants sifting of strong evidences from guesswork sometimes bordering
on imagination, a two-day international seminar noted today.
Speakers at ‘Terra Trema’ conceptualised by
Geeta Kapur, being held as part of the ongoing Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2014
delved deep into how much Kerala’s Malayalam has borrowed from languages spoken
in countries with which India’s western coast has had brush, noting that such adaptations
have extended to spheres of performance art.
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| Geeta Kapur and Riyas Komu |
For instance, Carelmancharitham, which is a
famed story-play in coastal central Kerala’s Biblical dance-drama of
Chavittunatakam that originated in the 16th century, depicts the 8th-century
Italian king Charlemagne as a crusader, pointed out renowned writer N S
Madhavan.
Also a travel writer and football columnist, he
also made a power-point presentation that showed how certain letters of the
Malayalam alphabet came into use, forced by borrowed use of words from other
languages.
The session, titled ‘Kochi Waters: Refracted
Cosmopolitanisms’, saw historian Rajan Gurukkal stressing the need for caution
while coming to conclusions about, say, the lost port city of Muziris where
life existed almost three millennia ago.
“The Pattanam excavations, which I personally
believe show relics of life in the Muziris, have thrown up pot shards from
Rome. But that does not mean the indigenous people used Mediterranean
utensils—these are stuff that they used during their monsoon-time stays in
Kerala,” added Prof Gurukkal, a former vice-chancellor of Mahatma Gandhi
University, Kottayam.
Chennai-based journalist-author Sashi Kumar, as
moderator of the forenoon session, noted that Kerala’s cosmopolitanism also
owes to its diaspora community who brought new sensibilities and lifestyles
into their native state.
The afternoon session, anchored by social
scientist Sanal Mohan, focused on Dalit art.
Kottayam-resident writer T M Yesudasan took up
the mythical Thoombinkal Chathan of the Pulaya community, in the context of a
work on the theme in the 2012 biennale by Malayali artist K P Reji, as an
example of recent trends in sensibilities related to Dalit motifs.
Hyderabad-based culture theorist Susie Tharu
quoted incidents of how Dalit activism led to political upheavals in the 1970s
Karnataka under chief minister D Devraj Urs.
Monday’s
forenoon session would be on ‘Global Capital and West Asia’, with economist
Prabhat Patnaik and political scientist Achin Vanaik speaking on ‘The Imperialist
Project in West Asia’ and ‘The Tragedy of Palestine’ respectively.
There will be
two afternoon sessions. ‘Curating in Troubled Terrain’ (speakers: Berlin Museum
Director David Eliott and curator Reem Fadda) will be moderated by Kapur.
The final session,
‘Ground Tremor’, which deals with archaeology, will be addressed by Kerala
historian P J Cherian and German writer Anselm Franke.
Curator-writer
Natasha Ginwala, who will moderate the session, will subsequently give an
introduction to the four films being screened in the evening.
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