TIRUCHY: While the percussion instrumentalists have been spread across the state and almost all the candidates opt them during their campaign rally, the untold story remains that a new concept of booking through agents have affected their actual earning for their performance and in most case, the agents take away certain percentage of the package amount and part with them with the remaining money.
“Soon after the announcement of the assembly election, the political functionaries called us continuously and asked to perform during the welcoming of the candidates. Initially we were booked for one week package and it was reduced to four days but we were later asked to perform for one single day and we were promised for more programmes in the upcoming days but no call has so far been received”, said S Marimuthu, owner of Ilayanila Thappu group.
Marimuthu said that he has ready with just 10 artists in hand and the offers might come for a bigger team and he used to arrange the group with members upto 50 artists.
“When we ready the team as per the requirement of the agents, they even cancel the programme at the last minute and the artists would become frustrated. By and large, we are at the mercy of the agents”, he said.
He also said that there are more percussion groups with different instruments but those who have a good rapport with the agents get more orders.
He said that these artists used to be busy during the festival months as every single religious procession arranged the percussion.
“But during the poll time, the things are different and we get upto Rs 20,000 per team and the organisers take care of the food but the calls are less compared to the previous elections. Probably, there may be little more time for the intensive campaign and we would get a decent order”, Marimuthu said.