‘Nokkuvidya Pavakali’s’ lone practitioner

A documentary film that puts the spotlight on the form of puppet theatre in Kerala that has only one practitioner left

Freelance journalist-filmmaker Reshmi Radhakrishnan first heard about Nokkuvdiya Pavakkali, a form of puppet theatre, in 2017. “What was even more shocking or surprising was, Monipally, where the practitioners live, is barely 15-odd kilometres from my hometown, Ramapuram, in Kottayam district. And I had not heard about it,” she says. Curious, she travelled to Monipally to visit one of the last two surviving practitioners of the art form: Moozhikkal Pankajakshi. Taken by the performance aspect, she says that the ‘art’ part of it caught her eye. Later, when she thought more about it, she realised its significance. “The art form has sociological importance; it is a Dravidian art form. The artistic aspect aside, there is the cultural part too that makes it imperative that the art form is preserved.” It resulted in her 2020 documentary film Nokkuvidya, recently screened at Kochi. She earlier wrote about it. Reshmi recollects her first impressions. “I felt bad about what I saw there,” she says. The wooden puppets were stored in a box under a bed in the house that Pankajakshi lived in with her daughter and granddaughter. “It did not look easy, looking at their means. Here they were preserving an art form despite the challenges... that struck a chord!” she says.