Deep inside the Marungapuri block, a sandy 59 cent patch of land in Chellampatti village has been home to 33 families of street performers officially known as ‘Kalai Koothadi’ for close to 10 years.
Belonging to the ‘Malai Kuravar’ community, these nomadic folk artistes travel all over Tamil Nadu to earn a living by staging dances and circus acts on the roadside.
“We have camped on the pavements and grounds all over the State, but we don’t where we are from,” S. Bhaskar, 32, an artiste, told The Hindu. The tribe’s members can speak (but not read or write) Tamil and Saurashtra language.
Changing tastes in entertainment and the prohibition of child labour in live performance arts has made these artistes wary of continuing their traditional profession.
The performers are adept at ‘aadal paadal’ and acrobatics such as tightrope walking and flame throwing, having learned the skills from their forefathers.
“We have realised that having identification proof such Aadhaar and ration cards is essential to modern life, so we chose to settle down in Chellampatti and at least let our children get educated, and perhaps get regular jobs,” said Mr. Bhaskar.
But the economic slowdown caused by the pandemic led to a major upheaval.
“For some time, we managed with our savings, and later went to work as farm labourers. When even this got prohibited during the second wave, we were distraught,” said G. Gopi, 24. “We decided to host a small show in our settlement in 2021 and filmed it on a mobile phone with our contact information. The video went viral when it was uploaded on social media platforms.”
Among the responders was Tiruchi’s Bishop Heber College, which had been part of the city’s COVID-19 Task Force at the height of the pandemic.
“We had no idea that such a community had been living here until we saw the video. When we visited the Chellampatti camp, we found it to be clean and well-maintained, but lacking in basic amenities such as water supply, road access and electricity connection. They have some basic solar power gadgets for lighting. Though the inmates all have the requisite identity proofs, they do not have ‘patta’ (land registration deeds) for their homes. Facilitating it requires coordination with multiple government and local administration authorities,” said J. Florence Shalini, assistant professor, Department of Social Work, Bishop Heber College, who has been doing a project on the Chellampatti artistes.
The college recently invited the performers to hold a fundraiser show on their campus. It has also been in talks with local sanitation NGOs in Tiruchi regarding toilets for the camp.
Panchayat officials from neighbouring Akkarapatti village have built a water tank here. “Though we are able to use the water for bathing and cooking, we are forced to venture out into the open grounds and fields to relieve ourselves. We have an urgent need for toilets in our camp,” said R. Neela, 38.
