The Soul of The Mahabharata It is impossible to find anyone who is fond of India and isn’t aware of the Mahabharata. Everyone at some point in their lives has heard someone or the other narrate stories from the thousands of tales that clutter the epic. No other story from India has been eulogized, rewritten, interpreted, translated, sung, narrated, danced to, choreographed, given scores of subtext and meta-narratives and philosophized for centuries now. It continues to be India’s greatest war, ever fought. But what is it about the rustic voice of a bashful balladeer woman that transforms these oft-repeated stories into an ethereal experience? Armed with a simple Tambura to her boisterous and overpowering voice, when Teejan Bai sings these songs in her Pandvaani style, the epic becomes an unforgettable encounter. I’ve had the fortune of spending good time with Teejan Bai and documenting her life over the years. This time we were all camped at the scenic IIM Calcutta campus that hosted SPIC MACAY’s first international convention. This gave me another excellent opportunity to spend more time with her. Catching up over Chai, one could see how she stood strong against tide to keep her art going high, through good and bad times. First few enquiries of her health went unheard as if she didn’t want to be asked about it. “What is the deal about bad health? My hands and legs are fine. My voice is fine. Haan! I’ve got some fever and that’ll come down with a tablet. Sab upar wale ka Kripa hain!” she added. We decided to start from her very beginning as a performer. “Aap ko tho sab kuch pata hain! Fir kya bolna? Aap jo pichle baar likhe, who abhi tak mere paas hain!” she said as I felt slightly happy and mighty proud about the fact that an iconic artiste like her could cherish an article I wrote as budding journalist over fifteen years ago. After much pursuing, she agreed to speak about her life and journey. She opened her world, her thoughts and poured her heart out. “Aap aaj kal Bangalore mein hain kya? Pehle Bambai Dilli me the na?” she asked with a familiarity in her sweet pastoral voice. Remembering an older meeting from almost fifteen years ago, her memory of it was clearer than what I had expected. “Mujhe yaad hain pehli baar Bangalore jab aayi thi. Woh Maya Madam show karwayi thi. Wahan ke chief minister saab bhi aaye. Main Samjhi ki koun hamare bhasha jaanege, koun hamare kala dekhenge. Par sab log bahut taareef kiye. Abhi tak wohi mera sabse bada show tha Dakshin bharat mein”, she recollected about her long association with Bangalore. Teejan Bai was introduced to art-loving audiences in South India by Kathak queen, the late Dr Maya Rao.

Teejan was invited to perform during SAARC’s ‘Dakshini’ festival in the mid’1980’s and the then chief minister Ramakrishna Hegde heaped high praise on her. This began her long association with performing in South India. She narrated events from memory like they all occurred last evening.

She visited Bangalore, a decade later to perform at the opening of the Ranga Shankara annual theatre festival few years ago. A turbulent graph and a star is born Sukhwati and Chunuk Lal Pardhi belonged to the traditional community of bird- catchers. Poverty drove them to make mats and brooms before taking to humble and poor peasants struggling with abject poverty in Ganiyari village, about fifteen kilometers near Bhilai, Teejan was the oldest of five children. The family could barely manage a daily meal and a girl child was considered an unnecessary burden in most cases. A simple roof over their head was luxury and they lived in a roadside shack where Teejan grew up. All that they had was her grandfather who was a Pandvaani artiste. He earned bread for the family and became Teejan’s first source of inspiration. “I learnt the art from my Nanaji while he did his rehearsals. He never taught directly. Girls were never allowed to think about performing, let alone learning. Even he did not come to know that I had become his silent disciple except once when he caught me at his door”, she recollected her early life as a kid. As per village customs, she was married off at age twelve. Binding down a freethinking teenager was impossible and an abusive first marriage came to an abrupt end. Out of concern for the depressed teenager, her grandfather decided to keep her busy with his art and Teejan’s interest in Pandvaani increased, much against the wishes of her family. “I chose the Kapalik style of Pandvaani, where the narrator depicts scene from the epic and improvises consistently. This gave me more freedom to think, to enact the dramatic elements, to be fearless and to make the story mine,” she said. Till then, women who performed had always preferred the Vedmati style, where the performer sits and narrates the story to a small gathering. Teejan had already stirred up a hornet’s nest by going against the grain. The highly conservative village community she belonged to, ostracized her as girls never performed, more over Teejan was stubborn about the way she did things. “I would be insulted every time I left my village with the Tambura.

I tried to convince them that I am going to sing the stories of Mahabharata. They would taunt me saying “Yeh anpad gawaar ladki fir se kahan jaa rahi hain dekho! Isko kisne bualaya kahani sunaane?”, she continued about her initial years as a performer and the humiliation she faced. Her persistence paid and she gave her first performance on a makeshift stage in a Chandrakhuri village in Durg district for a princely sum of ten rupees! This made news in her own village as no girl had ever achieved this sort of fame. Slowly they began accepting her and her style of art, with much hesitation. She decided to take some informal training under Umed Singh Deshmukh. Invitations from surrounding villages started piling up. She had, by now, mastered the art of Pandvaani and created her own genre in presenting it. Habib Tanvir, the famous theatre personality from Bhopal noticed her and recommended her performances to several other festivals. Soon Teejan Bai was performing for the Prime Ministers and heads of State and was hailed as the world’s first female exponent of Pandvaani. But hardships continued at home. "People in my village called me characterless because I sang and danced in public. My second husband used to beat me and stop me from performing. What could be more painful for an artiste than not being able to perform? I can never forget that difficult path I have left behind”, she says. “"Indian women have this amazing ability to tolerate things, keep the pain to their hearts and continue doing what they are supposed to do, I did exactly that," she adds. Over the decades, she remarried three times but never stopped performing even once.

From a shy village girl to a cultural ambassador Over the centuries various versions of the epic have evolved. Classical, folk and many other traditions have taken the same stories and made their own adaptations to present them in varied artistic ways. Several scholars have written their own interpretations. What are the roots of Pandvaani? What version does Teejan follow? “I follow the version by Sabal Singh Chauhan ji. It is loosely based and inspired from the Sanskrit version by Bhasa. But the stories all come to the same. Even other versions have the same Pandav and Draupadi. Everyone’s versions are fine. No writer is right or wrong”, she says. My curiosity about Pandvaani increases as to how long would she take to render the entire story in her own charming style. “From the Adi Parva to the Swargaarohan Parva, it would take me a hundred and twenty full days and nights to complete the entire story of the Mahabharata. I have been fortunate to narrate the whole story several times. I am not a machine to go on and on full days and nights though. But if you leave me to my good mood, I can even complete the whole story in two months.” she says.

I’ve met several people who consider Teejan to be a bit of a diva. She has a reputation of being moody, often eccentric and sometimes a tantrum-throwing queen. Knowing her well enough, I was always curious to know what keeps Teejan Bai’s mood going? “Artistes are moody people. That is because art has its own moods and shades and they, as artistes are nothing but instruments of their respective art forms. Do you know, it hasn’t been even many days since my younger son died? Do you know what a mother feels when she sees her own son dying? I have emotions but can’t be loud about expressing them. I can’t keep sitting at home and crying either. I am also an artiste. I use my art as a medium to express my pain. When I deal with episodes like Kunti-Karna Samvaad or how Subhadra deals with the death of Abhimanyu in the battlefield of Kurukshetra, I remember my own son and can’t stop my tears. Only those who know what I’ve gone through will understand what I am putting into my art. Real art comes from one’s own life experiences. But god has meant me to do this work so I have to. The show must go on!” she said as tears brimmed into her eyes laden with pain and her voice choked. We decide to take a break. I asked her if I should come another time. She nodded her head in the negative, quickly went into the washroom and returned looking composed. I noticed she washed her face and applied make-up to cover her sorrow. She pulled out her bag, made a Paan for herself and we ordered more Chai. She received a phone call and by the end of it sounded slightly cheerful. My next question was about her Tambura. A bright red base, a tall bamboo reed jutting out of it, to one end attached are a few peacock feathers and strings that can be tuned by tightening them to knobs. As she performs, she plucks these strings with the other hand to keep a constant rhythm and a thin drone that her voice comfortably settles on. “The Tambura has always been a part of my life. As a child I would see this in my dreams and I didn’t know or understand what that signified. A kind village elder told me that would be my destiny. I believe it is an Avtaar of three different gods I worship and always think of. Hanuman ji, Saraswati Maa and Krishna. I carry the blessings of these three with me where ever I go”, she added. As goes, the Tambura became an inseparable part of her life. She is a deeply spiritual person and is a great devotee of goddess Saraswati and lord Krishna. Does her spirituality in anyway connect to her art? Would she have been less spiritual if she was to tell any other folk stories and not the Mahabharata? Anyone else would have given up on the idea of god after going through the kind of hell in life like she did. “I think my Pandvaani is a blessing from Krishna. I feel I was born to tell these stories. Ups and downs are there in everyone’s life. I must have done some good Karma so I can continue to take the lord’s name. I am thankful god didn’t make me blind or deaf or mute or handicapped. I am blessed with everything and good art to spread in the world. So I have no regrets or nothing against god. I pray every time there is a show for every show is fresh and new to me. I feel some good energy within me when I pray. Without the blessings of god, I wouldn’t be able to even move ’, she added. I asked her how she managed to get into each character in the story with such ease. Even the most seasoned of drama artistes don’t find that state of effortlessness with which she dealt with each character. Was it over practice or with years of performing them over and over again? “These are characters for you?” she asked me with a mocking grin, “I have lived with them all my life. They are all real and in me! What else do I have other than this one story to tell? I own them! They speak to me and I tell you all the stories. I feel am possessed by them and they are asking me to tell you their stories so you don’t forget them too!” she added with a great command in her voice. For the last forty years her orchestra has been more or less the same. A harmonium, a Dholak, a Banjo and a Tabla in addition to the voices the chorus gives to her narrative hold the entire show together. Almost all the members hail from her family. “We all live together. They all have internalized the story too. Our best practice is when we are on stage. From my lip movements and the quivering of my cheeks, they can make out what I am singing. Moreover, experience is the best tool for a performer. They know when to pause, when to comment, when to sing and when to respond”, she said.

Even the most passionate of storytellers probably become easy victims of boredom narrating the same story more than a couple of times. One wonders how she kept herself inspired, repeating the same story for several decades now? “Boredom? What is that? I have never known of it! Mahabharat has all the Navarasas. In every Parva there are different shades. Among all the people in the story, you can find every human emotion. Tell me what human emotion you can’t find in the Mahabharat? Kshama, Karuna, Krodh sab kuch hain! When you are so involved, where is the question of being bored?” she asked. True to her art, every time she performs, she becomes one with the art. She is probably asked what is her character most often and she seemed to have a ready reply for it. She promptly went “Bhim! I love the character of Bhim! I think very few people understand his character. He goes through so much in the story but we only know very less because he is not the central hero. Moreover I have got a lot of appreciation for doing his role being a woman. Once in Paris, audiences went kept asking me to do the same thing again and again and there was endless applause!”, she recollected. Currently living in Bhilai with her family and grandchildren, Teejan Bai is not tied down by any habits, nor has any regrets that none of her children have taken to her art. "My students will carry forward this tradition. So what if I my children won't! Art cannot happen unless Ma Saraswati blesses you. Today I have over 150 students who come from different parts of the world, all the way to Bhilai and train with me. They work very hard because I keep a very strict routine. What is this art for if not for sharing with others? I got it from my masters, gurus and gods blessings. It is not mine. I am just an instrument for it. After I die, this will continue. Just like the stories of the Mahabharata continue to live even today, long after the whole era ended", she said with much hope in her voice. In Teejan Bai’s voice you hear the lament of Gandhari, the curse of Kunti, the wisdom of Vidura, the blood-curdling laughter of Sisupala, the dilemmas of Arjuna, the lust of Keechaka, the undying Bhakthi of a cheated and humiliated and yet hopeful Draupadi, the scheming mind of Shakuni, the retribution of Bhima, the echo of the Panchajanya , the valour of Abhimanyu, the sublime philosophy of the Gita and the blessings of Krishna. Characters come alive, scenes and plots unfold, and courtrooms, inner chambers, battlefields, gardens, groves, birdsongs and emotions take rebirth as Teejan takes you along with her narrative journey. The Tambura has a life of its own and transforms into just about everything she can lay hands on while in role-play! From palace pillars to doorways, war flags to emblems, Bheema’s mace, Arjuna’s bow, Krishna flute and the list is endless! Her narrations are laced with colloquial slang where she sings, dances, shouts and delivers dialogues throughout the performance and finally always managed to leave her audience enthralled with her charisma. There have been scores of books, articles, research papers, scholarly commentaries and musical renderings on The Mahabharata. But like the famous folklore scholar A K Ramanujan said an epic gets a new life every time it is rendered, no other version of this comes out more alive in anyone else’s voice than Teejan Bai’s. For close to five decades, Teejan has single handedly spread the folk ballad form of Pandvaani and resurrected it from fading out. No one else has put Chattisgarh on the international map through their art like Teejan Bai. For her contribution to Pandvaani, she received several prestigious awards. The Padma Shri and the Padma Bhushan from the government of India and the Sangeet Natak Akademi award. She has extensively traveled and performed from little known village fairs and festivals to some of the most prestigious venues across the world. Over her performance career, she has also become a symbol for women empowerment and has inspired scores of village girls to break through the shackles of patriarchal systems and stand on their own feet. She has often spoken up for women’s rights. When you are with her, you don’t realize how impossibly down to earth and simple she is. By the end of our conversation, we realized we had spent the whole day together talking. I asked her if she wanted something. “Yahan ke paan ke patte bade meethe hote hain na? Kahan milenge? Zara hamare ladke ko batadena”, she said smiling with a glow in her eyes, as she made another Paan. Her needs were clearly simpler than one could imagine. One could sense the shy village girl in her come through and through when she giggled with her Paan- stained teeth, grinning ear to ear. We parted as she gave me a tight hug with motherly warmth and promised to meet soon. “Bhilai Aajao! Main Bahut Achchi Kahan Banaungi!” she assured me as a parting gift that I or anyone else in my place would never refuse.

Her performance at the convention was extraordinary. She did an excerpt from ‘Draupadi Cheerharan’. By the end of her show, there wasn’t a single dry eye in the hall. The power of her performance engulfed everyone present there. For her it was just another show as she packed her bags to head for the next. For ages to come, she will be remembered as this legendary woman who became the most enigmatic voice of the Mahabharata, like no one else in the modern cultural history of India.

Veejay Sai (Veejay Sai is a well-known award-winning writer, editor and a culture critic)