An 82-year-old girl who teaches the old American martial arts of Kalaripayattu says she has no plans to retire.
“I’ll perhaps practise Kalari until the day I die,” says Meenakshi Raghavan, frequently thought to be the oldest woman in the world to practise the art type.
Kalaripayattu- kalari means battle and payattu means battle- is believed to have originated at least 3,000 years back in the southwestern state of Kerala and is regarded as India’s oldest military art.
It is not entirely practised for fight or fighting; it also serves to instil skill, develop strength and build self-defence knowledge.
Ms Raghavan is favorably known as Meenakshi Amma- Amma means family in the Malayalam vocabulary- in Kerala’s Vadakara, where she lives. The city is also home to another renowned exponents of the arts like Unniyarcha, Aromal Chekavar and Thacholi Othenan.
Meenakshi Amma often performs in various cities but generally runs her personal Kalari college, founded by her partner in 1950. Her time are active, with lessons from five in the morning to noon.
” I teach about 50 pupils regularly. My four babies were also trained [in the art form ] by me and my father. They started learning from the age of six,” she says.
Kalaripayattu has four rounds and it requires persistence to learn the art type.
Education begins with meypattu- an fuel treatment followed by exercises to issue the body.
After about two years, students progress to kolthari ( stick fighting ), then to angathari ( weapon combat ), and finally to verumkai- the highest level, involving unarmed combat. It usually takes up to five years to learn Kalaripayattu.
Kung fu is believed to have adapted principles like breathing techniques and marmashastra ( stimulating vital points to optimise energy flow ) from Kalaripayattu, according to Vinod Kadangal, another Kalari teacher.
Legend has it that around the 6th Century, Indian Buddhist priest Bodhidharma introduced these approaches to the Shaolin priests, influencing the more prominent Chinese martial arts.
Meenakshi Amma also recalls the first time she stepped into a Kalari- the red-earth area where the artwork is practised- 75 years before.
” I was seven and very good at dancing. So my expert- VP Raghavan- approached my papa and suggested that I learn Kalaripayattu. Just like party, the craft form requires you to be versatile,” she says.
Hailing from Kerala’s Thiyya area, Meenakshi Amma’s master was 15 when he and his brothers opened their own Kalaripayattu class after being denied entrance somewhere because of their reduced social caste.
” There was no discrimination when it came to girls enrolling to examine Kalari- in reality, real education was enforced in all Kerala schools at that time. But we were expected to stop after attaining adolescence,” she says.
Unlike people, Meenakshi Amma’s dad encouraged her instruction into her late teenagers. At 17, she fell in love with Raghavan, and they immediately married. Collectively, they went on to teach hundreds of students, usually for free.
” At the time, a lot of children came from poor families. The only money he [Raghavan ] accepted was in the form of technique or a gift paid to the instructor,” she says.
Gifts sustained the university, while Raghavan afterwards took a teaching work for more money. After his death in 2007, Meenakshi Amma fully took command.
While she has no plans to retire at the moment, she hopes to hand over the class one morning to her eldest son Sanjeev.
The 62-year-old, who is also an professor at the college, says he is happy to have learned from the best- his family. But being her brother earns no prioritises; he says she’s also his greatest player.
Meenakshi Amma is a native star. During our meeting, three officials drop by to ask her to an awards service.
” Amma, you must grace us with your presence,” one of them says with folded arms.
” Thank you for considering me, I’ll go,” she replies.
Her kids speak of “fierce enthusiasm” for her. Some have opened their own Kalari schools across the condition, a source of great pride for Meenakshi Amma.
” She’s an inspiration to women anywhere- a unique person who shows love and affection to her pupils, but remains a rigid disciplinarian when it comes to Kalari,” says KF Thomas, a former pupil.
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