To the beat of the parai
An all-girls parai group 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.
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 ngers become their kutchi (sticks).“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.
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.
N Deepan, their parai aatam teacher, says that three such teams of ‘Avvai Home Girls’ have graduated from the school. 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 out of Korukkupet says that he has seen this group blossom over time. The instrument, for the longest time, was only played by men. More recently, mixed groups of men and women play together.