“I can remember the beats better now than I can my daily chores,” says Vasantha Radhakrishnan, a retired Agriculture Department employee from Thrikkandiyur in Malappuram. At 62, she sits with her friends, fingers dancing over the idakka, the two-headed percussion instrument, singing along to the tunes she has learned over the past two years.

It is not every day that you see a group of five women in their 50s and 60s come together to play an instrument and sing along with it. But for Vasantha, Tirur municipal councillor Nirmala Kuttikrishnan, retired teacher Sarala Krishnan, teacher Bhama Harikumar, and Ramani Kunnath, this long-cherished dream is finally becoming a reality. Neighbours for over 30 years and members of a Thiruvathirakali troupe under their residential association, they decided two years ago that it was time to try something new: learning the idakka. Their ensemble is now called Sivapadam Sopana Sangeetha Sabha.

“After retirement, we continued performing Thiruvathira at various stages, but I always loved instruments like the Chenda and Idakka,” Vasantha says. “We were looking for a teacher, and Bhama contacted Dr Balussery Krishnadas on Facebook. That’s how we began our lessons.” At first, classes were online, but the guru would travel from Kozhikode to Malappuram once a month. “Initially, he came only occasionally, but after seeing our enthusiasm, he started coming more frequently,” she adds.

They began practising on wooden blocks to get the beats right. Once their hands became fluent, each woman bought her own idakka and began serious practice. “For me, it has helped personally,” Vasantha says softly. “After a major surgery, my memory was weak. Learning and practising the beats day by day has improved it significantly. I would repeat the patterns in my mind, day and night, until they were etched into memory.”

The women also chose to sing while playing, a departure from the traditional format of separate players and singers. “We wanted to do both ourselves. None of us are formally trained in music, but being performers, we manage,” Vasantha explains.

Now, the group is preparing for their Arangetram, set for October 19 at the Thrikkandiyur Shiva Temple. “We’ve learned eight to ten keerthanas so far, mostly from YouTube,” says 68-year-old Nirmala, the eldest member. Despite their busy schedules, evenings are reserved for practice. For Nirmala, whose husband passed away eight years ago and whose children live abroad, the camaraderie of the group has been a source of comfort. “Seeing them perform has inspired other women our age to take an interest in learning the idakka,” she says.

Sarala adds that years of training in Thiruvathirakali made learning the idakka easier. “We already have thaalabodham, a sense of rhythm, which helped us pick up the instrument quickly. Honestly, I wasn’t that interested in the beginning, but when I saw my friends getting excited, I joined, and now I love it,” she says with a smile.