An all-girls parai team from Chennai are drumming up sensational beats

Meet the members part of the only all-girls parai group in Tamil Nadu. These students from a school in Besant Nagar drums up a beat that is impossible to resist

The wardens and teachers of Besant Nagar’s Avvai Home TVR Girls’ Higher Secondary School are insistent about preserving the sanctity of lunches and dinners at this school cum boarding. They hope for quiet meals with as little food wastage.

On days when food is delayed by a few minutes though, a concert of cacophony brews. Students like A Kaviya, hold their plates as one would, the parai, and begin with simple beats. Their vaai paadu (vocal rhythms) spill out through spoons and fingers become their kutchi (sticks). “We do not need much. Even a table would do. I have broken pots at home because of banging a tune on them,” she says.

During moments like this, the canteen hears booming percussive sounds — thaku-ku-tha, being the most basic of the vaai paadu holding the instrumentalists together. A symphony ensues. A dance breaks out.

Kaviya’s obsession with catchy beats is not entirely her own. The school has meticulously groomed a group of 20 young women to form the only regularly performing all-girls parai attam group in Chennai. For two days a week between 3pm and 5pm, the foray of this school resembles a concert venue as the girls learn new dance routines while playing this ancient percussion instrument.

N Deepan, their parai aatam teacher who has been teaching the girls since 2016, says that three such teams of ‘Avvai Home Girls’ playing the parai, have graduated. The current crew is relatively new and had most recently played at the Urur Olcott Kuppam Vizha in January this year. “Don’t buy their shy demeanour. They are all vaaiadis (chatterboxes),” he says.

Deepan, who runs the popular Nanbargal Gramiya Kalai Kuzhu (Friends Folk Cultural Crew) out of Korukkupet in North Madras, says that he has seen this group blossom over time. His time as an instructor has been different because girls usually do not play the parai. The instrument, for the longest time, was only played by men. More recently, mixed groups of men and women play together. However, it is rare to see a team entirely of girls, playing this instrument.

“Adding a cultural programme to their education has increased their confidence significantly. You should see the number of cups they have won over the years. Everyone knows what to expect from the Avvai Home Girls — a great performance,” he says.