Kottakkal Sivaraman

Kottakkal Sivaraman (1936 – 19 July 2010) was a performing artiste who revolutionised the portrayal of female roles in Kathakali, the classical dance-drama from Kerala in southern India.

Kathakali, being a largely masculine dance form with an all-male presence (at least till the end of the first half of the 20th century), tended to give female roles a secondary status. This is despite some of its classical stories having dense and slow-paced songs (padams) set for female characters like Lalitha (in Kirmeeravadham, Bakavadham) or Urvashi (in Kalakeyavadham) besides characters like Damayanti (Nalacharitam) or Mohini (Rugmangadacharitam) or Sairandhri (or Malini in Keechakavadham) which demanded fertile imagination and an insight about their profile for brighter enactment.

The 1936-born Sivaraman, a disciple of his uncle-guru Padma Shri Vazhenkada Kunchu Nair at the PSV Natyasangham in Kottakkal in north-central Kerala's Malappuram district, decided to change all this subordination. By the 1960s, he had experimented those ideas on stage with success, much to the appreciation of aesthetes not only in his native Valluvanad, an erstwhile central-Kerala fiefdom which has been the homestead for the refined Kalluvazhi style of Kathakali, but across Kerala and subsequently the rest of the world. His Karalmanna village, north of Cherpulassery, in Palakkad district thus further affixed its name on the Kathakali map.

Over the years, Sivaraman has acted with actors of several generations across north and south Kerala, but it was with Kalamandalam Gopi that he teamed up well to gain repute as a phenomenal pair on the Kathakali stage. Together they acted, with Sivaraman as Damayanti and Gopi as Nalan, as Kunti-Karnan, as Mohini-Rukmangadan. Sivaraman's portrayal of Sairandhri (Draupadi in disguise as a maid) in Keechakavadham opposite Padma Bhushan Kalamandalam Ramankutty Nair (as Keechaka) also earned him lots of stages and fame. Sivaraman was one among the rare leading Kathakali artistes of modern times to have not taught in any leading performing-art institutions.

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