KTCT Higher Secondary School in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, has a new teacher! Iris, the first humanoid robot teacher in the state and possibly the country, was developed in collaboration with Makerlabs Edutech, as part of the Atal Tinkering Lab (ATL) project, a NITI Aayog initiative designed to boost extracurricular activities in schools.

Iris, who is multi-lingual, can answer complex questions across various subjects, provide personalised voice assistance, cater to different learning styles, facilitate interactive learning experiences, and make education more engaging for students. For added mobility, Iris comes equipped with wheels, and has a dedicated Intel processor and a co-processor for manoeuvering tasks. With an Android app interface, users can easily control and interact with Iris for a personalised learning experience.

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“I hope martial artists are more interested in the roots of martial art and not in the different decorative branches, flowers, or leaves.” — Bruce Lee

A tribute by experts to Kalaripayattu says that it is the ancestor of all Asian martial arts. It is one of the oldest surviving martial arts. These experts are of the opinion that Buddhist monks and even the bodharmi founder of Zen Buddhism, who introduced martial arts to China and Japan, studied Kalaripayattu.

The word kalari denotes a battlefield and an arena for training in weaponry, while payattu means the art of fighting or performing fighting (self-defence) techniques.

Mythology

Parashurama, the mythological warrior sage, mastered the art of armed combat and archery under Lord Shiva. He is credited with having opened the first kalari, and along with his 21 disciples, it is believed that he opened 108 kalaris across Kerala.

History

Historically, the origin of payattu is shrouded in mystery. There are various theories, but no one is able to produce evidence to substantiate them. Some information on Kalaripayattu is available on the palm manuscripts, Ranga-byasam and Verumkaipitutham, at the Oriental Manuscript Library in Chennai. No mention is made about the authors or the periods of these manuscripts. Some of the exercises mentioned in Ranga-byasam and those of the Arappukkai style of payattu are similar. The dronamballi style and literature on it are available in the university library of Trivandrum.

Historians, Tamil literature and anthologies hold that Kalaripayattu evolved between BC 200-600 AD, and it reached its acme of popularity in Kerala between the 14th and 17th centuries. The decline started with invasions by the Moghuls, British and Portuguese. The British banned it, and it was forced to go underground until 1947. It is only post-independence that we are seeing a resurgence of Kalaripayattu.

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Mohiniattam is the elegant, lyrical classical dance of Kerala, prevailing for centuries and is normally performed by women. The dance movements symbolize the exquisite swaying of the palm trees of Kerala. It is the dance of the enchantress and not the dance of the seductress as misunderstood by many. It is based on the lasya concept of dancing, a feminine, graceful style of dancing, initiated by goddess Parvati.

Stories of Mohiniattam’s origin

According to Hindu mythology and varied sacred texts, there are various references to the word Mohini and the evolution of Mohiniattam. During Amruta Manthan (churning of the ocean in search of the nectar of immortality), in a tussle between the devas (gods) and asuras (demons), the demons were about to snatch the pot of nectar, but Lord Vishnu appeared as a beautiful damsel, Mohini, and took away the pot of nectar. Hence, Mohini is referred to as the beautiful woman of enchantment. The word Mohini is derived from the words mohit and moham.

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Sini Dalfi Rossario, hailing from Alappuzha, Kerala, known for its backwaters and house boats, is the new entrant to the India Book of Records (2021). She did so by drawing 108 portraits of famous personalities like Jawaharlal Nehru, William Shakespeare, Neil Armstrong, Kalpana Chawla and others on a single A4 size sheet of paper as confirmed on 21 July 2021. Born on 25 July 1996, Sini was brought up in Pune, and presently works for an IT company in Mumbai.

JOHN THEKKINKAD met Sini on behalf of The Teenager Today for a personal interview wherein Sini speaks about her achievements, and how she made it to the India Book of Records.

What prompted you to take up this challenge to break the India Book of Records in portrait drawing? 
I was interested in different forms of art works since my childhood, sketching caught my fancy from the start. The intricate work always fascinated me to turn more towards portrait sketches. 

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Arya Rajendran, a second year student of B.Sc. Mathematics at the All Saints’ College, Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, created history by becoming the youngest Mayor in the State of Kerala and possibly in the whole of India after Suman Koli (elected Mayor from Rajasthan’s Bharatpur in 2009). Ms Rajendran was sworn in as the Mayor of the Thiruvananthapuram Municipal Corporation on 24 December 2020, after she was elected a Corporator from the Mudavanmughal ward of the city.

Her father, Mr Rajendran, is an electrician, by profession, and her mother, Sreelatha, an insurance agent. Her brother, Aaravind, is an automobile engineer. Following her parents’ footsteps, Arya embarked on her political career very early in life. She joined Balasangam, the world’s largest children’s organization, affiliated to the Communist Party of India (CPM), as a child activist when she was in the fifth standard. She is now the state president of Balasangam.

After she joined All Saints’ College in 2019 as an undergraduate student, Arya became a member of the Students Federation of India (SFI), the students’ wing of the CPI-M.

Arya is a born leader and has always worked democratically with peers, encouraging other students and listening attentively to the opinions of others. Arya is also a conscientious, hard-working and self-motivated student. She has always displayed admirable self-discipline and is considered a valued member of the class by her teachers and companions.

The Mayor-student Arya Rajendran spoke to The Teenager Today in an exclusive interview given to the magazine, within a few days of her taking over as the Mayor of Thiruvananthapuram Corporation. She spoke extensively to the magazine’s representative about her early days as a child activist as a member of Balasangam, her frank opinion about students entering active politics, and about her personal take on violent protests and destruction of public property by agitating students, and members of students unions often patronised by different political parties. Excerpts from the interview.

You hold the unique distinction of being the youngest Mayor of a Municipal Corporation in the whole of India. You are certainly an icon and a role model for all young people in the country. Please tell us about how you came to be involved in politics from a very young age? Were your parents supportive of you?
I was born into a leftist political family. My parents are members of the Communist Party of India Marxist, CPI (M), for nearly three decades. I followed my parents’ footsteps. That is why I joined the Balasangam, the world’s largest children’s organization, affiliated to the CPI-M, as a child activist when I was in the fifth standard.

Did your active involvement in Balasangam come, any time, in the way of your studies?
I think political awareness and involvement in politics can and should go hand-in-hand with studies. There is no need to let off either of the two, and there can always be ways to balance the two. I have found it possible to spend time for both and I encourage students to do the same.

Do you think that the organisation has played a major role in shaping your thinking, and in developing your personality and leadership qualities?
It is the organization and my involvement with Balasangam that has given me the confidence and the experience in handling the new role that I don today. With humility I would like to say that whatever good qualities I have picked up as a person and as a leader, Balasangam has had a major role to play in it.

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They describe themselves as a “band from the land of coconuts”. So what kind of music would you expect then? The four-piece, Kochi-based (Kerala) band with Ashwin Gopakumar on vocals and guitar, Palee Francis on keys, Sailesh G. Pai on drums and Achyuth Jaigopal on guitar and banjo, bring on a unique brand of infectious happy music, which transcends age, genre, and even language. With simple melodies, When Chai Met Toast takes inspiration from the lighter side of life to create music that is heartwarming, happy and smile-worthy. 

VERUS FERREIRA speaks with the members of When Chai Met Toast, who in a short but illustrious career have carved a niche for themselves with catchy songs and beautiful videos. The young lads are the next big thing to look out for on the Indie music circuit.

Tell us something about how the band was formed.
Achyuth: Ashwin and I first met at a music café called Springr in Fort Kochi. Though the band wasn’t formed then, we kept in touch and Ashwin collaborated to sing on one of the songs for my solo EP. We wrote the first songs together after realizing that we shared common interests in country and folk music, one being chai and the other toast. The band started as a two-piece with Ashwin and me. Silesh Pai (drums) and Palee Francis (keyboard and music programming) who we call ‘magic’, joined the band a year later through mutual friends, when we wanted to expand the sound of the band from what it was. They definitely are a big part of what When Chai Met Toast has evolved into. In short, this is how four South Indian boys met English folk and Indian roots. The other founding member of the band is manager Kishan John, who has been with us from the start.

I’m sure there’s a story behind the name When Chai Met Toast?
Achyuth: We always say that the hardest part about forming a band is naming the band. The name When Chai Met Toast was initially influenced by a menu in a cafe. We found that the name relates to the casual, happy mood of the band and the music we play. Chai being Indian and ‘toast’ being western shows a mix of cultures that we both enjoy and take inspiration from.

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Raising a threat to China’s web conferencing solutions in the world market, Vconsol, a new product developed by a young web research and development company, Techgentsia Software Technologies Pvt Ltd, from Cherthala in Alleppey district of Kerala became the one-crore worth winner of the Prime Minister’s Innovation Challenge.

While announcing the winner on 20 August 2020, Minister of Electronics, Communications and IT, Ravi Shankar Prasad, noted that it gives an indication of the changing India where technological advancements can take place even in small towns. Thus, a locally-made Vconsol becomes an Indian solution to web conferencing while pushing down the entry of Chinese-American app Zoom and Google Meet and beating giants like HCL and Cisco.

The company will get financial support of Rs 10 lakh for the next three years for operation and maintenance and will be the official web conferencing solution partner for the Government of India during this period. When asked about the experiences of the company in the venture, its co-founder and CEO, 43-year-old Joy Sebastian humbly says: “It’s a team effort. The co-founder of the company, Tony Thomas, and CTO Ankur Deep Jaiswal have done a great job along with the entire team of 50 members to achieve this.”

The Indian achievement comes on the eve of a survival challenge in the global pandemic condition that hit India’s and China’s billion club population putting them in social distancing and travel restrictions for months along with other nations. Thus, quantum leap innovations of this kind from India are an indication of her potential to become an active player in world software technology market. “It is time for India to become a country where apps are also uploaded… Since video conferencing was an important instrument, we always discussed the possibility of a ‘Made in India’ video conferencing. The government is committed to developing India’s software product and mobile app economy in a big way and efforts like this will take us a long way in that direction,” the minister added.

To develop Vconsol was not an easy task for Joy Sebastian. “Security aspects of the product are a great concern for us. Vconsol is the result of a ten-year-long research of Techgentsia. While the government’s task was to develop a web conferencing solution that can actively participate 25 people, we developed a solution to accommodate 100 active participants and another 300 spectators at the same time. It will work even at a low internet speed. It does not require different video streaming for each person that enriches the data quality and ensures less data usage compared to other solutions,” Joy Sebastian explains.

The Innovation Challenge was open for participation from industries, start-ups and individual experts. The competition was held in three stages — Concept, Prototype and Product Stage. Among the 1,983 companies selected for submitting the prototype only 12 were shortlisted for the next stage and were given Rs 5 lakh to develop the prototype. In the third stage, five companies were selected and Rs 20 lakh each was given to three companies and Rs 15 lakh each for two companies to develop the final product in one month.

The homegrown video app, Chingari, is an answer to TikTok, which won first prize in the Aatma Nirbhar Bharat App Innovation Challenge in the social category and will receive Rs 20 lakh. The second and third winners are YourQuote, India’s largest writing app, and Koo News app, winning Rs 15 lakh and 10 lakh respectively. The jury identified 24 apps for prizes across all categories and another 20 apps for special mention. The app innovation challenge sought entries for nine different categories.

India’s call to boycott Chinese products in the wake of the Galwan Valley skirmish on 15 June 2020 that claimed the lives of 40 Chinese soldiers and 20 Indian soldiers, created an anti-China sentiment even at the local level. However, promoting desi solutions within a short period is practically very difficult due to India’s high dependency on China for parts, hardware and many other items. India has $75 billion worth imports from China every year. Hence, making India ‘Aatma Nirbhar Bharat’ is an emotional goal which cannot be achieved without engaging youngistan in boosting small scale local production in all walks.

A self-reliant India does not mean cutting off from rest of the world. Many start-ups and young IT companies have silently made an entry in the global market. As Joy Sebastian puts it: “We have clients worldwide. Europe-based Easy Meeting, U.S based Kaipura Inc. Corp., Brand Commerce, Ireland-based I-Connect are some of our clients. We give solutions to Mumbai-based Global One, C-dac in Trivandrum and ITI Ltd. Indian Startups are getting a momentum in the global market.”

Apparently, India has shifted her focus to many other fields to enhance self-reliance during the pandemic. The personal protective equipment (PPE) sector of India has grown from zero to 1,50,000 pieces a day in two months by the beginning of the month of May. It has a capacity to produce more than two lakh kits a day. The PPE industry in India is worth Rs 7,000 crore (U.S. $980 million) and in two months it grew second only to China. In another venture, India re-purposed her various automobile sector industries to collaborate in ventilator-making. Announcement of a ‘Made in India’ 5G network by Reliance Jio using 100 per cent homegrown technologies and solutions is another important shift.

Among many such shifts in the recent past, the relevance of success of Techgentsia is to be analysed for its vision to bring in a revolutionary change in the space of formal IT education. Joy Sebastian reveals, “My company gives more importance to talent pool than any reputation of an engineering institute. We are even not bothered to know whether the aspirant is an engineering graduate or not. Our team has employees who did not complete an engineering degree and some others have joined engineering college to get a degree after availing their expertise from Techgentsia.”

Adding more to its vision, he says, “Our company has a vision to rebuild the society around us. It is our social responsibility to engage in developing people around us to ‘hi tech locals’ by providing human resource and IT solutions for better community life. My preference is to give job to more people in my locality. When I failed to clear interviews of world companies due to my local flavour, I decided to bring the world into my locality.”

Efforts of Techgentsia could be re-read in a post-Covid world order as a company that makes a difference with its vision at par with the concept ‘Atma Nirbhar Bharat’. Its product, Vconsol, is the best example of ‘local’ becomes ‘vocal.’ In a country like ours where being elite means western-educated and being local is considered inferior, a vernacular-school-trained man from a coastal hamlet sets his goal in the world market, posing challenges to multinationals, using local human resources in the IT sector and showing that the way forward is to tame the dragon.

JOY SEBASTIAN “A voyage to strive, to seek, to find and not to yield!”

The voyage of Joy Sebastian, son of a fisherman, from Cherthala of Alleppey district of Kerala is ‘to strive, to seek, to find and not to yield’. Joy’s parents, Sebastian and Mary, struggled hard throughout the year to keep the pot boiling with their meagre income from seasonal fishing. Their children, Joy, and his elder brother, Job, were brought up in a government-sponsored one-room colony where education was a luxury. The parents had to choose between buying textbooks and day-to-day ration. A determined mother, Mary, always preferred spending on her children’s education to household expenses and even restrained her husband from buying an ordinary fishing boat of their own. The children could not think of new clothes or a good meal, especially during the rainy season. Their struggle came almost to an end when Job completed his polytechnic education and got a job. The family was on the verge of fortune when he got an appointment in a polytechnic college as a lecturer, but he died in a bike accident before joining. Struggling, Joy continued his MCA getting a scholarship from the company where his brother worked and with the support of friends, and by giving tuitions. He could not get through many interviews because of poor communication, as he had only vernacular schooling. “Even poor family background would have adverse effect on your talent during interviews,” Joy recalls. “That is why I decided to rebuild myself without having any support from corporate companies,” he added. Joy always keeps a village touch, and looked for quality and talent in the applicants to his company rather than looks and high grades. “Most of the employees in my company are from our locality as my vision is to give jobs to local aspirants and to give them a decent livelihood!” He started his office from home in 2007 getting assignments from a company where he was working. His company, Techgentia, was registered in 2009 with zero investment with a friend Tony Thomas as co-founder. Techgentia expanded in 2013, shifting the office to a hired building in Ernakulam. For more than a year, they had to really struggle hard, depending only on one client; slowly started getting more clients, also shifting the office to Info Park, Cherthala. From here the company started its success journey along with an array of international clients. With a desi touch and maintaining international standards, Techgentia has now won the one crore worth Innovation Challenge, beating HCL and SOHO and challenging web conferencing solutions like Zoom and Google Meet.

Courtesy: Indian Currents

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The southern state of India, Kerala, is known for its rich diversity of art forms. Way back in 1930, Mahakavi Vallathol established Kerala Kalamandalam and introduced two distinct classical dance styles, namely, Kathakali and Mohiniattam, that enthralled even European audiences when performed by Kalamandalam dancers led by the great poet. While the two classical dances gained international recognition, there are several other art forms of Kerala that are comparatively lesser known, some of which I enlist here, that captures the attention of the common people. I dedicate this article to three devoted performers whom I met personally: Veteran Koodiyattam artiste, Mani Madhava Chakyar, Mumbai-based Chakyar Koothu artiste, K. K. Rajan, and Ottam Thullal artiste, Kalamandalam Geethanandanam, who literally collapsed on stage during a performance at a young age!

Theyyam

Theyyam is a ritualistic dance form wherein pantheistic deities are summoned to the body of the performer. The performers are generally men and they perform in a kaavu (small rain forest) manifesting varied aspects of nature. The performers are decorated with leaves, garlands, flowers and fruits. The headgear is really big and personifies Chamundi Theyyam who is the goddess invoked. Particularly prevalent in North Malabar, there are several types of Theyyam, and the dance is performed near temples. There are particular communities that follow this custom with strict adherence.

Koodiyattam

Koodiyattam is considered the mother of Kathakali, and also the greatest form of Sanskrit theatre that led to the development of the dramatic art form of Kerala. Koodiyattam literally means dancing together and is also based on the ‘sastras’, and the language of hand gestures is derived from Hasta Laksha Deepika and is the original form of dance drama and theatre. Kathakali is considered the refined and decorated form of Koodiyattam that portrays stories of Hindu mythology in a dramatized form. While the costume and make-up of Koodiyattam is comparatively simpler, Kathakali moves forward with stylised make-up and costumes that changes according to the character portrayed.

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Wildlife conservationist and snake expert, Vava Suresh, is known as ‘The Snake Man of Kerala’. The 46-year-old has captured 176 king cobras, and rescued more than 50,000 straying snakes. He has been bitten 300 times by venomous snakes and more than 3000 times by all types of snakes. He has been on ventilator thrice and six times in ICU. He is widely known for his conservation activities like the rescue and release of endangered species of snakes, preservation of collected eggs until hatching periods, and creating awareness among people about snakes and their behaviour.

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You may not understand Malayalam, but after listening to Thaikkudam Bridge, you will dig out more songs from the band. Kerala’s Thaikkudam Bridge is redefining the music scene, and with several international shows across the world, the band has created a big buzz on the Indie band circuit. Their cover of A. R. Rehman’s medley to Metallica’s Nothing Else Matters is extremely impressive and I can honestly say that I like their interpretation of it better than the original. Their music is a blend of sounds, styles and rhythms and what grabs you are the elements of thrash metal, rap to balladic mixes and Indian music that they combine into an intriguing sound all their own. The band has also brought back the nostalgia and melody of 70’s and 80’s Malayalam movies, not forgetting singing in Hindi, Tamil and English.

The band was formed for a one-time gig through the musical show Music Mojo on Kappa TV that turned Thaikkudam Bridge, a 15-member group, into a rage. Their composition Fish Rock which became popular through social networking sites and of course YouTube, has taken the band all over the world.

VERUS FERREIRA met with founder-member Govind Menon for a chat before Thaikkudam Bridge took the stage at Red FM’s new IP, ‘South Side Story’, a festival of music, culture and food from Kerala, at Richardson & Cruddas in Mumbai.

Tell us about Thaikkudam Bridge.
Thaikkudam Bridge is a rock band with a soundscape built upon elements of folk and classical sounds of India interspersed with layers of progressive, pop, ambient and electronic textures. There is no staple sound here; we vary from electronic rock to metal. That is one of the reasons why no two songs sound the same. We treat every song differently.

How did the name Thaikuddam Bridge come about?
It is named after an innocuous small bridge that nobody knew of until the band was formed. It was my idea basically as we used to gather at the bridge to practise and so the name stuck.

The band consists of 15 members; do all sing and play instruments?
The band’s strength lies in nine vocalists and six instrumentalists including a violinist as a unique lead to the band. They come from the length and breadth of the country, each bringing on board a wealth of diverse musical, linguistic and cultural influences thus creating a unique musical experience that is truly global in nature yet local in idea. Part of the fifteen member band is inclusive of three sound engineers. We include folk, Hindustani and classical singers amongst us. Each of us is a full-time musician or connected with the music industry in some way or the other. There’s Mithun Raju, Vian Fernandes, Ruthin Thej, Anish T N, Peethambaran Menon (my dad), Vipin Lal, Chritin Hanna Jos, Anish Gopalakrishnan, Krishna Bongane, Nila Madhab Mohapatra, Amith Bal, Hemanth Mukundan, Rajan K S and Christin Jose.

Who are your biggest influences?
Well, all of us have different influences. Metallica, Coldplay, Alice in Chains and our legendary musicians back home and around the world. Our biggest influence is the love of our listeners. They actually give us leads to make music we want the world to hear.

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