Kunjan Nambiar was a Malayalam poet. Malayalam (മലയാളം) is the major language of the state of Kerala, in southern India. ...

Kunjan Nambiar was the master of satirist poetry. The chief contribution of Nambiar is the invention and popularization of a new performing art known as Thullal. The world literally means "dance", but under this name Nambiar devised a new style of verse narration with a little background music and dance-like swinging movement to wean the people away from the Chakkiyar Koothu, which was the form popular till then. He was to use pure Malayalam as opposed to the stylized and Sanskritized language of Koothu. He also adopted many elements from Padayani or Kolam Thullal and certain other folk arts. It is reasonable to assume that he was himself a performer. The first hand knowledge of the various thalas and ragas and even the practices of drummers is a pre-requisite for the writing of a Thullal. Kunchan Nambiar possessed this in abundance. Each Thullal composition consists of a Puranic tale retoled in simple rhythmic verse, fit for loud recitation before an audience. There are three kinds of Thullal distinguished on the basis of the performer's costume and the style of rendering, viz., Ottan, Seethankan and Parayan. Dravidian metres are used throughout although there is nothing to prevent the insertion of a quatrain in a Sanskrit metre. Nambiar also developed new metres (e.g. Vaythari metres) based on the vocal notation for various talas. The language also is predominantly Malayalam with a large admixture of colloquial and dialectal forms. Humour is invariable the dominant mood: other bhavas are brought in for variety and to suit the situation.

One of the oft-quoted lines from his poems is "nokkeda nammude margey kidakkunna markada neeyangu maari kidakkada." (In Nambiar's retelling of the Mahabharatham, Bhima tells Hanuman to move from his way, by saying "Go lie elsewhere, you monkey.")

Poems

— In one of his poem "kaalanillatha kaalam"(roughly translated as Time without any death, Nambiar wonders how life would be if there were no death. He sees homes crowded with ever-shrinking aged ancestors.

— "Thottodiya Pada" is a poem that describes in witty detail how an army retreats from a losing battle.

Extracts from Kunchan Nambiar's poems/writings:

Here are some lines from Kunchan Nambiar's poems, which are not translated since the humour will likely be lost:

— "Nambi aarennu chodichu, Nambiar-ennu cholli neen, Nambi kettatha kopichu, Thampuraaney porukkanam."

— "Ka ka ka ka Kamsan, ki ki ki Krishnan, pu pu pu pu Poothana
Enningana ullavar aarum thanney, makalude mangala karmam mohikkanda."
(The above is when a king declares who is not eligible to marry his daughter.) "Nokkeda nammude marge kidakkana markkada nee angu mari kida sada" excerpt from ottanthullal Kalyanasaugandhikam

External links

Kerala Government site on Kunchan Nambiar

An active webforum based on Malayala Sahithyam