Sanitizing the Profane

This paper seeks to understand the struggle of the ‘original’ singers/musicians of the theripaatu to retain the form in the face of censorship and commercial compulsions. It explores the complex interstices of caste, subalternism and subculture as sites of resistance to the dominant social and religious behavioural codes, as it traces the passage of thetheripaatu from the realm of the subcultural to the popular. This paper seeks to understand the complex struggle that the ‘original’ singers/musicians of the theripaatu engage in to retain the true essence of the form in the face of censorship and commercial compulsions. It explores the complex interstices of caste, subalternism and subculture as sites of resistance to the dominant social and religious behavioral codes, as it traces the passage of the theripaatu from the realm of the subcultural to the popular.