Four days – 10 venues – 30 events and 400 artistes. Chennai’s most unique festival, Sundaram Finance Mylapore Festival, took place last week (January 3 -6,2008) in the oldest and the traditional heartland of Chennai, Mylapore. Mylapore boasts of heritage, art, tradition and is considered the hub of music with some of the leading Sabhas located in this area. Mylapore is as much a symbol of Chennai as anything else.

The Sundaram Finance Mylapore Festival is a celebration of this rich heritage and tradition, that the new generation seem to have almost forgotten, and was conceptualised to give a fresh lease of life to the traditional art and culture. The festival focuses on creating awareness about Mylapore and its culture by providing a platform for the commoners to exhibit their talent.

The idea behind the Mylapore Festival is to make use of the open spaces in this heritage zone of Mylapore around the famous Kapaleeswara Temple and in Nageswara Rao Park and to host events related to local heritage and lifestyle in an effort to keep alive age-old customs and traditions.

Asked why Mylapore was chosen for this festival, T T Srinivasaraghavan, managing director, Sundaram Finance Ltd., and organiser of the festival, says, “Mylapore was the best suited locality for the festival as it symbolised the cultural ethos of the state. The Mylapore Festival probably gives the people of Chennai the closest experience of the once famous ‘Thiruvizhaas’ of Tamil Nadu. The festival has grown significantly bigger every year, both in terms of performing artistes as well as the visitors.” 

While the Kolam contests and the concert in the park for kids under 15 years were the anchor events of the four-day festival, the traditional board game of Pallankuzhi and the stilt show also attracted big crowd.

Some of the other highlights at the Mylapore festival included traditional food and handicrafts festival, heritage walk, nature walk, traditional street theatre, a mela of art and crafts, folk shows, cultural performances and classical dance against the backdrop of the towering Kapali temple.

Quite unmindful of the cold wintry mornings that mark this period, music connoisseurs gathered in big numbers at the Nageswara Rao park in Mylapore. While the first 15 days of Margazhi in Chennai is famous for closed-door concerts in Sabhas by prominent and established musicians, the second half of Margazhi (beginning 1st week of January) witnessed open-air concerts in the park sans mike by newcomers to music arena.

The festival kicked off with a ‘kutcheri’ by two California-based sisters, 13-year-old Sruti and 11-year-old Jayshree Sarathy. The two had come all the way from the US and gave their first ever Carnatic music concert in India.

Sruti and Jayshree said, “While we have given several music performances in the US, this is the first time we have sung without mikes and speakers. This is a very unique concept of open-air park kutcheri and was a different kind of experience for us. Unlike other typical closed room concerts where the audience is at a distance, there was less of a distance between the artiste and the audience in this open air park concert.”

While these two young kids had kicked off the festival,  several thousands came to witness some of the oldest and most traditional dance and folk shows.

The shows

A 15 member team from Andhra Pradesh Folk and Tribal Cultural Association (APFTCA), Hyderabad performed a Lambadi and Mathuri, a tribal dance of Nallagonda and Adilabad.

Over 10 members of Karpooram Kala Kendra, a dance troupe from Alleppey in Kerala presented an ancient traditional dance performance in front of the Kapali temple. The troupe performed ‘Panchavadyam’, a divine ritual performed at temples in Kerala and ‘Ambalapuzha Velakali’, a martial art based dance performance using the shield and the sword.

The Angalaparameswari troupe from Melmalaiyanur, a remote village near Pondicherry showcase a 1000 year old traditional dance called ‘Kali Aatam’.  In another sparkling performance, this troupe presented an ancient game of Tamil Nadu called the ‘Puli Aatam’ that is said to date back to the stone age. 

Drawing early morning ‘kolam’s is an ancient tradition in Tamil Nadu and this tradition is an inherent part of the Mylaporeans as well. Interestingly, this contest even lured young boys and girls aged under 10, who came up with several creative themes for the ‘kolam’s. But the surprise element came from three men who were bold enough to come and participate in this contest which is a stronghold of women. And one of the men was chosen the winner for his drawings.

Another highlight of the Mylapore Festival was the one hour ‘Kokkalikattai’ (Stilt) show, which is an art , said to be over 150 years old, of walking and dancing on huge stilts.

The Sundaram Finance Mylapore Festival was an opportunity for the residents of Chennai as well as its visitors (including several hundreds from overseas) to learn and experience the city's traditional art forms and culture.

For four days, the whole of Mylapore had been transformed into a ‘Thiruvizha’. There was something of interest to every age group.