{"id":17828,"date":"2021-10-08T03:58:47","date_gmt":"2021-10-08T03:58:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/?p=17828"},"modified":"2021-10-08T03:58:48","modified_gmt":"2021-10-08T03:58:48","slug":"a-great-grandmother-keeps-an-indian-martial-art-alive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2021\/10\/08\/a-great-grandmother-keeps-an-indian-martial-art-alive\/","title":{"rendered":"A Great-Grandmother Keeps an Indian Martial Art Alive"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>KERALA, INDIA, October 3, 2021 (Aljazeera): Deftly parrying her son with a bamboo cane, Meenakshi Amma\u2019s prowess at Kalari \u2013 thought to be India\u2019s oldest martial art \u2013 belies her 78 years. The great-grandmother in Kerala, southern India, has been a driving force in the revival of Kalarippayattu \u2013 as the ancient practice is also known \u2013 and in encouraging girls to take it up. \u201cI started Kalari when I was seven. I am still practicing, learning and teaching,\u201d said the matriarch of the Kadathanad Kalari Sangham school, founded by her late husband in 1949. \u201cWhen you open the newspapers, you only see news of violence against women. When women learn this martial art, they feel physically and mentally strong and it makes them confident to work and travel alone.\u201d<br><br>Kalari, which contains elements of dance and yoga, can involve weapons such as swords, shields and staffs. Reputedly 3,000 years old and mentioned in ancient Hindu scriptures, it remains infused with religion in the present day. India\u2019s British colonial rulers banned the practice in 1804 but it survived underground before a revival in the early 20th century and after independence in 1947. Now it is recognized as a sport and practiced all over India.<br><br><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/gallery\/2021\/10\/3\/photos-great-grandmother-keeps-indian-martial-art-alive\n\">https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/gallery\/2021\/10\/3\/photos-great-grandmother-keeps-indian-martial-art-alive<br><\/a><br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>KERALA, INDIA, October 3, 2021 (Aljazeera): Deftly parrying her son with a bamboo cane, Meenakshi Amma\u2019s prowess at Kalari \u2013,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17835,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17828"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17846,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17828\/revisions\/17846"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}