Kavalam Narayana Panicker

King Agnimitra is at war with the neighbouring state Vidharbha. He has two wikfes, Dharini and Iravati. The beautiful Malavika a fugitive in war lives in cognitive as Dharini's maid in Agnimitra's Court. Agnimiytra happens to see Malavika in a dance competition which was arranged by his friend Goutama (Vidooshaka). Love grows between Agnimitra and Malavika. They find a rendezvous under an Asoka Tree. Informed by the King's commandoes, Dharini and Iravati catch the lovers together, Malavika is imprisoned. Vidooshaka devices a scheme to free Malavika and she is freed. Parivrajika who knows the secret about Malavika's latent power advises her to kick the dried Asoka tree. The tree immediately blossoms. This coincides with the victory of Agnimitra in the war with the Greeks. The play concludes with the King marrying Malavika.

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Panicker's one-act play deals with the relation of identification between an actor and his or her role. The action takes place on the eve of the last act of the Kathakali piece Keechakavadham (The Killing of Keechaka). The events surrounding the performance uncannily echo events in the play. One character even claims to have killed the lead actor of the play because he detested the character the man portrayed. However, the three different accounts that are presented of the same plot are never resolved or reconciled with each other. Each version is accompanied by a different style of folk music: the tune and rhythm of southern Kerala’s thampuran pattu, the pulluvan pattu and the ayappan pattu. The performers were drawn from the theatre and from Kathakali. In southern India, with its plethora of politicians using their film images to acquire inordinate wealth and power, Aravindan’s TV film bears on an eminently sensitive political as well as aesthetic issue.

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Esthappan is a fisherman, who lives in a seashore colony. His story unfolds through narrations by other fishermen about his miraculous acts. Through the contradictory statements of these people, a mystical figure of Esthappan unfolds.

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A stranger who may be the trickster magician Kummatty comes to a village in Malabar, India.

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