After days of hearing and reading about a big grand festival in Thiruvananthapuram, Krishnapriya and Rajashree got on a bus from Alappuzha to come to the capital on Monday, November 7, and see what the fuss was all about. It is the final day of Keraleeyam – the big grand festival they heard about – and the two women, one just finishing her Master’s and the other a Bachelor’s student, have been hopping from one venue to another, watching ancient art forms in the first, seeing the exhibits of feature film history in another, tasting the food of far off districts in a third. “We badly want to get a taste of everything and there is only a single day for it. We are headed toward a display of agricultural tools now,” Krishnapriya says before dashing off to the next venue.
The pavements bordering the Kanakakunnu-Museum road of Thiruvananthapuram have been sprinkled with people for the past week at all hours of the day. During nights, the crowds multiply, and the police end up closing the road to traffic so people can walk freely to enjoy the various sights and events of Keraleeyam. The festival was launched in a big way on November 1, the 67th anniversary of Kerala becoming a state, transforming the capital into a city of lights and celebrations. The idea is to make it an annual event during which the success story of Kerala through the decades could be celebrated. Events – cultural, technical, talks and film festivals and exhibitions – have been hosted by 40 venues across the city, bringing multitudes of people out on the streets even at late hours of the night.
“People are getting out of their houses to see what Keraleeyam is at 11 in the night. It gives a feeling of safety when there are so many people out at that time, many women among them. The only complaint is that there is too much to see and we are not able to visit everything in seven days. It should have been held for a whole month,” say Jisha and Seema, women working in IT and visiting the Kanakakunnu exhibit on Monday.
The food festival at Kanakakunnu spread across the vast Suryakanthi grounds, has been drawing a huge crowd, with stalls run by Kudumbashree units promising authentic dishes from various districts. The Vana-Sundari counter, promising herbal varieties from northern Kerala, has been the most popular, the queue extending a long way outside the venue.
A mother and daughter who have visited the food festivals at Kanakakunnu and Spencer’s Junction say they enjoyed the food but experienced some delays in getting it. Rishika and Lalu Gopinath are happy to see the nightlife that festivals like Keraleeyam and Onam create on the otherwise sleepy roads of Thiruvananthapuram, they say.
Outside Kanakakunnu, the recently opened Manaveeyam Veedi – a street sandwiched between two busy roads in the city – has been packed with a mostly young crowd in the evenings, since a few weeks before Keraleeyam began. On November 1, Manaveeyam was turned into a food street with cosy traditional sheds resembling teashops of ages ago. Three young men drinking tea under a shed say that they have been witnessing the rush of the past week while working at an office nearby. Jefin, Alfin and Rahul are from Kollam and Alappuzha, working in the capital and enjoying the city’s transformation in the last few days. “But they should have held it across Kerala. Now, only the people in Thiruvananthapuram get to experience all of this,” Jefin says.
Unusual visitors to the street at night also include whole families, complete with grandparents and little kids. Groups of women have also been visiting the venues. “We could not get out at night but we were really impressed by the exhibits we saw. We found them very informative. I am sure that next year it will be even bigger because people from other states and countries may also want to see this spectacle and understand the whole ‘Kerala thanima’ (authentic Kerala),” says Janet, a homemaker, who came with her friend Cherupushpam, a retired government official.
A good majority of the crowd are student groups, unmindful of classes being cancelled when the universities turned into hosts. University College and Women’s College in Thiruvananthapuram have all been venues of Keraleeyam, showcasing art forms and holding a variety of events such as flea markets and photography workshops. A small group of University students who only got to visit the other venues on Monday, say that they have enjoyed watching Kathakali and Theyyam and dance performances of aged women, finding the traditional art forms appealing. Fayaz says he liked the Science exhibits, while Azia says she was charmed by the cultural shows.
A little way away from them, Prarthana, who came to the city a day ago to begin her legal studies at the Law Academy, says she had been curious seeing the reels and the many recommendations that seniors in the college were giving her. “Come, see Keraleeyam. It will be a new experience for you, they have been telling me. I came and straightaway ran into this performance in front of the Kanakakunnu,” she says while clicking snapshots of a traditional art show before her.
It would be great if the nightlife would continue undisturbed, and the sense of security of the past week prevailed, is a sentiment being whispered among the young and old.