rahul gopinath yadhukrishnan k r and vishnuprasad k r all engineering students have been training in koodiyattam since the age of seven they have undergone the tough and intricate preliminary stages and are now ready for the rigors of the scholarly repertoirebut art can thrive only so much on an empty stomach and the three artists need to take a decision quickly get funding for their art or leave it and join the it sector or some allied field and content themselves by indulging in koodiyattam as a hobbyit was then that the idea of crowdfunding took shape a novel idea for an art form as ancient and abstruse as koodiyattam the attempt was to raise a rs 20 lakh corpus so that the three young engineers could continue as koodiyattam artists and their 15 years of dedicated training didnt go waste they have been with us since the age of seven now they are performers but we have to pay them a small salary if they need to stay on thats when the idea of looking at societal funding came up says margi madhu chakyar of nepathya centre for koodiyattam at moozhikulam near thrissur one of the three main koodiyattam training centres in the statebut it took just 40 days to recognise harsh reality all that the crowdfunding could muster was a little more than a lakh of rupees unesco has declared koodiyattam as a masterpiece of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity but looks like the general public is not very interested our artists need stage performances ironically we are keeping a tradition alive in the state of its origin yet the kerala government does not support it in any form for example the nishagandhi festival of dance is organized by the state government yet we have not heard of a koodiyattam festival ever organized by the state madhu agonisesunlike carnatic music or kathakali where there is accompanying music to take the audience along koodiyattam is not popular because there is more depth to it and is not easy to grasp the koodiyattam performer uses angika hand gestures and body movements vachika verbal acting aharya makeup and costuming and satwika facial expressions to put up a highlystylised yet raw performance knowledge of sanskrit is important an artist has to learn and understand the slokas and interpret it to the audience with the help of expressions one sloka could be enacted for almost two hours the accompanying drummers play to the interpretations of the artistmadhu a renowned artist and teacher at the department of ancient theatre at sree sankaracharya university of sanskrit kalady says that this theatre form is extremely difficult to learn needing up to three years of comprehensive study of manuscripts choreographic texts and acting principles before one can even make it to a performing stage there are only three or four artists in koodiyattam today who can perform it in its entirety and only one or two artists who know the