For Sankaranarayana Menon, the 93-year-old kalaripayattu exponent who has been awarded the Padma Shri for his contributions to martial arts, this Republic Day began like any other morning. He awoke at 5 a.m., bathed in the family pond, offered prayers at the courtyard shrine, and walked onto the kalari (arena) in Kerala’s Chavakkad, where his students awaited him, ready for three hours of gruelling body and mind training.
There was a brief round of applause for his accomplishment, which was announced by the government on Tuesday night, but there was no excessive revelry. ‘It goes without saying that I am grateful that the government has recognised me. But this isn’t the end of the story. As long as I live, I will continue to teach students. It’s my responsibility,’ he replies softly but clearly.
His physique can no longer withstand the everyday rigours of demonstrating the complicated steps (‘adavu’). So he confines himself to giving instructions in a metrical, singsong vernacular passed down to him by his predecessors, almost like folk poetry.
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