PAPER 5 DANCE, POETS AND POETRY, RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY AND INDIAN CLASSICAL DANCE MODULE 26 POETRY USED IN KATHAK AFTER INDEPENDENCE The classical dance traditions of have always drawn their insight and inspiration from the very rich and varied musical heritage that has been bequeathed to us. These musical gems span generations and genres, and continue to inform and enrich the aural and visual firmament of dance. As the nation came into being and unity was being celebrated rather than diversity, an interesting development happened in the arts. Although each dance form was typical of a region and had grown and flowered under the creative impulses it received from the arts of the region, as a result of which we can see the links between, say, cited here only as an example, the musical form of tarana / तयाना and the dance item tarana, which in turn for its poses borrows extensively from the miniature Paintings of the Mughals and Pahari schools of painting. But after the nation came into being there was a daring that was encountered- a different trend that started to catch up across India. This was the trend of taking thematic, poetic and ideational inspiration from different parts of India, in the faith and belief that now each part of India could be justly claimed by all. It began with seeking poetry form anywhere in India. Probably one of the earliest examples of this was Maya Rao, going beyond the traditional poetry of Kathak and persuading Shambhu Maharaj to work with her on Jayadev’s “Geet Govind”. Although at that time, for

1 we are talking of the decade of the 50s, Odissi was not really known, nor its close connect with Geet Govind, this interest may have been stirred by a keenness to explore the richness of poetry, which went well with the classical status of Kathak. The linking of classical Sanskrit poetry, with a classical style could not evoke any castigation or rebuke, even in those uncertain times. The Geet Govind actually already had a sort of pan Indian presence, being performed in Kerela and Manipur as well. This preference for Sanskrit may well be true, for among the very first Ballets produced in Kathak by Sriram Bharatiya Kala Kendra were “Malati Madhav / भारती भाधव” based on Bhavabhuti’s classic work in Sanskrit in 1958, choreographed by Lacchhu Maharaj and Birju Maharaj, and “Kumar Sambhavam / कु भाय स륍ब वं” based on Kalida’s Sanskrit play, once again choreographed by Birju Maharaj, that was also presented in 1958 itself. 1958 saw the national seminar of Dance organised by the , and these works were showcased there. The arranging of the many styles of dance on the same stage became a regular concern for cultural bureaucrats, as it reflected the rich diversity of India, and had the power of the spectacular. Earlier there had been some attempts by pioneers like Madam Meneka to create dance dramas of “Nritya Natikas / न配ृ म नाटिका ” as they were called, that successfully brought Kathak, Manipuri and Kathakali, the three styles that she had learnt, on the same stage. At that time she had written the poetry, selected the appropriate ragas and tuned them to go with her vision of a smart international level

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Lila / कृ ष्ण रीरा ”, “Meneka Lasyam / भेनका रास्मभ’” and “Malavikagnimitra / भारववकाग्ननमभत्र”- all themes drawn from classical Sanskrit literature. It was in an attempt to find the common poetic base that could carry many dance forms, that Swati Thirunal was discovered by non Kerela based styles. Maharja Swati Thirunal of Travancore wrote in five languages- Sanskrit, Malayalam, Hindi, Telugu and Kannada although he was fluent in many more. He wrote about traditional lores, ‘itihas / इततहास’ and ‘puranic / ऩुयाणणक’ stories, and did so in the spirit of Bhakti. For these reasons he was a good choice for dance poetry across styles. Why only styles, of the even between ‘banis / फानी’ within the styles. Many still remember the use of Swati Thirunal poetry by Prerana Shimali and Veronique Azan, representative of the Jaipur gharana and Lucknow gharana respectively, in a programme they did at the urging of the then Director of the Kathak Kendra, Keshav Kothari. But it is important to remember that there were some poets for the traditional flag bearers of the form who were writing for the first time in independent India. They knew their dance like the back of their hands and so the poetic works that they came up with were truly suited to dance. Among such poet dancers were Pt. Birju Maharaj, Pandita Rohini Bhate and even on the rare occasion, Pt.

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Durga Lal, whose thumri on the Khandita nayika, his senior disciple Uma Dogra often dances. Rohini Bhate was fluent in English, Hindi Marathi and Sanskrit. She was not just interested in poetry from around the world but was quite adept at wielding the pen herself. She would often write herself to be able to get the right poetic expression that she was seeking. One of herself written works was “Prahlad Katyha / प्रह्राद क配म्” which was for solo enactment, and was a very popular piece in her repertoire. She worked on three haikus of Japanese poet Basho as ensemble choreography. She also worked on a composition based on R.N. Tagore’s work “Maun / भौन” around which she worked an ensemble choreography. Two poems of Bhagwati Prasad Mishra- “Kathputli /

कठऩुतरी” and “Suraj ke Khilaaf / सूयज के णिराप ”, both were choreographies for a group. Rohini Bhatte’s principal disciple Roshan Datye was as daring as her mentor in using unusual poetry and unusual themes. In a two-and-a- half-hour long production called “Shrishti / सग्ृ ष्ि” done in 2006, which looked at the Indian ideas on the environment, starting from Panchmahabhootas / ऩंचभहाबूत to the issue of Renewable energy, she wove in the writing of traditional poets like Tulsidas, and modern poets, like poet Dharampal Sahil’s work “Prakriti ka Prem Patra /

प्रकृ तत का प्रेभ ऩत्र” and poet Vijay Bajaj’s work- “Dharti ke Kagaz par

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/ धयती के कागज ऩय”. In the same production, she also used Anjali Soman’s poem “Dahakta Aasamaan / दहकता आसभान” that started with the lines- “Kisi dahakti bhatti jaise, sir par soona aasmaan jale… / ककसी दहकती बट्टी जैसे, सय ऩय सूना आसभान जरे…”. Saturated in Veer rasa is poet Vasant Bapat’s poem written in the pawada style- “Mard Marathayancha Powada / भदद भयाठमांचा ऩोवाडा”. This was written on Shivaji Maharaja it was sung in the pavada style, like the Shahirs or bhats sing it. This formed the base for a group treatment. The poet Bahinabai Chaudhury was low literate woman. Yet she wrote powerfully “Mann Vadhai tho Vavdhai / भन वाढई थो वा핍धई ” referring to the pull of the mother’s home. She also worked on the poet Shanta Shelke’s poem – “Vikal Mann aaj surat asahaye / ववकर भन आज सूयत असाह्मे ”, depicting the Virahini Virhotkanthita nayika. She also worked on “Adi-nukul” which was written by Gaynpith awardee Kusumaagraj. Among Rohini ji’s other disciples, mention must be made of Neelima Adhyeye who worked on the poetry of Gyanpith awardee the poet Kusumaagraj. She worked on “Kaun / कौन”, on which she set a duet choreography. Her Guru behen Smt. Prajakta Raj has worked on Marathi poems like Bapat’s “ Geet / भहायाष्र गीत ”, reinforcing Maratha pride, and Indira Sant’s poem in Marathi- “Ekti / एकिी” or Alone, both for group choreographies. She has also used Harivansh Rai Bachhan’s “Prateeksha / प्रतीऺा”.

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The post-independence period has established the fact that as new icons are celebrated, replacing the old, anniversaries often serve as markers and milestones of new India. Even though Ghazals and Urdu poetry are part of the repertoire of Kathak, it was to mark the centenary of Ghalib’s death in 1969, that the ballet “Hota Hai Shabe Roz Tamasha Mere Aage / होता है शफे योज़ तभाशा भेये आगे ”, based on the works of Mirza Ghalib, was produced. Senior Kathak dancer Uma Sharma, has a special relationship with Ghalib, as she celebrates his anniversary each year by leading a people’s movement and procession to his house in Ballimaran in Shahjahanabad or Old Delhi. She has been dancing the poets work since many years, out of the love of urdu poetry. One of the poets best known works of Ghalib that she is famous for is “Aah ko chahiye kya, ik umra asar hone tak / आह को चाटहमे क्मा , इक उम्र असय होने तक”. The sancharis she goes into while enacting just poem, are memorable. When she does the line “Shama har rang mein jalti hai seher hone tak / शभा हय यंग भᴂ जरती है सेहय होने तक ”, she abandons any pretense of a shabdarthak / श녍दाथदक or even padarthak abhinaya and after depicting the flame of the shama / शभा, takes a creative leap, and starts on a showing of the navarasa. This is because the light of the fire is made up of all colors and each color is indicated by a rasa / यस!

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Passionate about poetry in any language and from any period, Uma Sharma admits that she has articulated a lot of concerns, by following the route of saying it through poetry. Very fond of good poetry herself, she has adopted her voice from the best of modern poetry- be it Gopal Das Neeraj's “Karwan guzar gaya gubaar dekhte rahe / कायवांगुज़य गमा गुफाय देित े यहे ”, Harivansh Rai Bachchan's “Madhushala / भधुशारा” or Kaifi Azmi's “Saanp / सांऩ”. She uses the power of poetry when it comes to voicing concerns of communalism. She is well aware that abhinaya is her strong point. What is more as she is blessed with a melodious voice she sings out the poetry herself! This doesn’t fail to grab the attention of her audience, and also makes the song danceable, by serving as a bridge between the mere singing if the song and the dancing of the song. “Like good poetry the idiom of dance must have the power move people,” she feels, and concentrates her efforts in that direction. Her facility with poetry, which is a quality she would expect all dancers to have, and the fact that she remembers several hundred poems in Hindi and its many variants and Urdu, allows her to jump from one thought to another, one language to another, all with the lightness of a gazelle, and within the blink of an eye. The important skill here is to leave the familiar territory of Radha and Krishna with its fixed set of gestures, poses, movements that need to be restrung for every performance, and go into the abstract. This can be achieved only if the underlying visual poetry is first visible, and then internalized sufficiently, to be conveyed cogently. Having been trained by Shambhu Maharaj, she admits that thinking is an essential part of abhinaya. Thinking, connections, identification of key words

7 that have large open spaces within suited for exploration all happen with thinking about it and then trying it out. In a lecture that she gave in 1997 iconic dance scholar, Kapila Vatsyayan said that “The national agenda introduced themes like ‘Shakuntala / शकंु तरा’, ‘Kumar Sambhava / कु भाय संबव ’ and Tagore’s ‘Natirpuja / नटिय ऩू जा’ and ‘Visarjan / ववसजदन’ (even) into school performances.” This trend of working on themes that reinforced nationalist pride can be seen in the many ballets that got created around figures of Indian history like Rani Jhansi, Gautam Buddha, etc. Even a figure like Lacchu Maharaj known more for his skills in evocatively translating poetry into abhinaya was inspired to create a work called “Bapu ki Amar Kahani / फाऩू कक अभय कहानी”. The accompanying trend, in the world of professional dance was to work on the poetry of poets who had a national level if not nationalist presence. In this context, with his international Nobel recognition, Tagore was a popular choice. Even Roshan Kumari, known in the world of Kathak for her sharp nritta and energized dance, worked on Tagore in Kathak, and was hailed for her innovative ballet “Abhisarika / अमबसारयका”, based on Tagore’s work. Given the fact that the Tagore birth centenary came within fifteen years of independence, and brought with it some funding opportunities, resulted in many dancers exploring the poetry of Tagore.

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Then in 1961 came the birth anniversary of Rabindra Nath Tagore and the world of the arts benefitted from two developments that happened around this occasion. Firstly many important cities were allotted funds to build auditoriums for cultural performances. That is why so many cities boast of a Rabindra Bhawan or Tagore Theatre. The second was that some money was also made available to create new works around his writings. It marked a sudden production glut of Tagore’s poetry being made available in dance. Again the Sriram Bharatiya Kala Kendra’s Kathak Kendra came up with a ballet “Dalia / दमरमा” based on Tagore’s works.

Kolkata based Kathak dancer Rani Karna started in 1978 to work on Tagore lyrics, because being in Kolkata you cannot escape Tagore. “Anandadhara” based in Raga Malkauns served as the opening song to the concert. It served as a ‘Nirgun Bhakti / तनगुणद बग्क्त’ piece to the ‘Nirakar Roop / तनयाकाय 셂ऩ ’ of the Supreme Being. The very word Anandadhara / आनंदधाया conjures up a variety of images and ideas that rise and blend into one another- images of endlessness, or abundance, of and the eternal flow of grace. The dancer was faced with the dilemma of how to convey all of this. The answer lay in innovation. This innovation saw the use of movements, all of which were from the Kathak idiom, but there was a complete absence of Kathak’s basic stance. Instead, the body stretched in every direction and levels were explored while seated, standing and bent, allowing for the use of vertical and horizontal aspects of space.

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In 2011, when Geetanjali Lal headed the Repertory of the Kathak Kendra, she created a very interesting work from Tagore’s writings. She used the “Sangan gagane ghor ghana ghata / संगन गगने घोय घन घिा” from the Nobel prize winning “Gitanjali / गीतांजमर” and very creatively transformed it into a ‘Kavitt” of Kathak, thereby opening several possibilities of motif making for an ensemble. A Kathak dancer who has enjoyed poetry, recalls pages of it, in many languages, and has employed it prolifically for use in dance is Shovana Narayan. A senior Civil Servant, wife of an international Ambassador, Shovana has seen the best that the world has to offer. Yet she is rooted in her own heritage. In 2014, she presented a ‘hasya rasa’ piece called “Motilal Nandi / भोतीरार नंदी” based on then nonsense rhymes of Rabindranatha Tagore. Hasya is a rasa that most dancers shy of, but not Shovana. In fact, drawing upon the longtime friendship that her parents had with the poet , Shivan landed where angels fear to tread. She explored the poet’s relationship with his muse, his sister-in-law, Kadambari. The song “Tobu Mone Rekho / तोफू भोने येिो ” written in 1888, four years after her suicide, and which Tagore even sang in a recording made a few years before he passed away was used to open the performance with. The way Shovana treated this story- on a personal level is how she treats her love affair with poetry and does not hesitate to share her love with all. Continuing with her fondness for Tagore, in 2011 she created a work titled “Shuoranir Shaad / शौयतनय शाद” based on a

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Tagore short story. It was introspection by Shuorani the Queen of happiness through her encounters with Shuorani, the Queen of sorrow. It enters the dichotomies of desire and envy, imitation and original, happiness and sorrow. A year later, that marked the 90th anniversary of Kazi Nazrul Islam’s poem ‘Bidrohi / बफद्रोही’, she paid homage to this great master poet and musician by performing it in an indo- Bangladesh initiative. Often, and especially in Delhi, this kind of bilateral creativity happens as it is also the diplomatic capital of India. Between 1993 and 1998, she pioneered the genre of dance enactments to philosophical themes with eminent philosopher, the late Prof. Ramchandra Gandhi, grandson of , based on the lives of contemporary thinkers and sages like Gandhi, Vivekananda, Ramana Maharishi and Swami Ramakrishna Paramhans. She also rejuvenated the solo narrative tradition of north India, in which Kathak was originally located, by presenting in 1996, “Shakuntala / शकंु तरा” and in 2000, she did “Yashoda / मशोदा”.

Shovana has a close association with this work of the rashtra kavi, the national poet, Maithili Sharan Gupt, that starts with the very poignant lament- “Sakhi veh Mujhse keh kar Jaate / सिी वेह भुझसे कह कय जाते.”

The modern day dancers who learnt the Raigarh Gharana Kathak have the advantage of a very distinctive nritta repertoire. But traditionally they have been dancing the abhinaya pieces of the

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Jaipur and Lucknow gharanas. The new generation of dancers, encouraged by state patronage extended by the government of Madhya Pradesh, in the post independence period, attempted to give the gharana an equally unique abhinaya repertoire. In a form of regional jingoism they explored poetry of their own soil. Thus poets like Padmakar, Makhan Lal Chaturvedi, Subhadra Kumari Chauhan, Kalidas & Isuri became the Madhya Pradesh poets that they chose over others. Dancers like Rasmi Vajpeyi and Dr. Vijaya Sharma are among those who use this poetry, which carries with it, a whiff of the region’s soil! Padmakar has been danced by Prerana Shrimali too. As have been the verses of Guru Gobind Singh. She has worked on Kabir as well. Shrimali explains that her decision to explore Kabir was partly driven by Pt. Kumar Gandharva’s famous comment ‘Kabir Ko Ghungroo Nahin / कफीय को घुंघ셂 नहीं ’, which implied that Kabir’s leap towards formlessness was so perfect that it could never be enacted in a form like dance that must use the concrete body. The attempt to resolve that paradox by Shrimali is a brave but rewarding one. It required the dancer to draw on her experience and inner judgment while inhabiting the undefined spaces between the concrete and the abstract. “I wanted to create a strong surface for ‘amurt / अभूत’द or abstraction. I wanted to condition the stage as well as the audience to watch Kabir’s philosophy. The point was to create the formless through form”, she adds.

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Approaching Kabir, and the idea of the austere absence was difficult. So, taking a cue from the significance of the Name and its utterance in Bhakti expression, Shrimali turned to his name for inspiration. The three syllables were split up and each was explored for its meaning in keeping with the concept of the parts merging to become the whole. In the dancer’s choreographic structure, the first syllable ‘Ka’ denoted kaya, the body or the material world, which needs to be acknowledged and experienced before it can be transcended. Interestingly, the dancer has inhabited the language of Kathak so consummately that she is able to mould it to her creative and compositional needs. For instance, she briefly adapted a minimalist gesture of pulling a loom, a reference to Kabir’s life as a weaver, adding another layer of implied meaning for the audience. “This is not strictly speaking a part of Kathak but I have made it mine. Whatever I do in the course of a choreographic exploration looks like Kathak”, she asserted. Next came rang from the third syllable ‘Ra’. This was an inversion she chose because she wanted to end with ‘Bi’ for biraha / बफयह, or the endless yearning which is the final residue in the Bhakti experience. Rang, referred to the dissolution of the self and the fact of being dyed in the colours of the One. Rare poems from Kabir’s oeuvre were selected to go with each syllable to deepen an exploration of these meanings through restrained abhinaya and improvisation.

And who can forget the unforgettable “Okha Haran / ओिा हयण”, that used the famed Gujarati art of Akhyan / आख्मान - a form of singing, reciting and drum playing that is done by the master

13 narrators- the maan bhatts / भाण बट्ट , kathak dancer and choreographer Kumudini Lakhia used a 17th century Akhyan text written by the Gujarati poet Premanand, a Maan Bhatt himself. The Maan Bhatt group, led by Lakhia’s long time music collaborator, Atul Desai, was placed centre stage, and the dance, literally an Akhyan Katha, played out around. By using folklore in this manner, Kumudini Lakhia extended the scope of poetry themes in Kathak and the enlarged the spectrum of poetic expressions used in Kathak. It also established the fact that often dancers create anew out of the creativity available in their own backyards. In 1985, Kumudini Lakhia choreographed a piece titled “The Peg”. It was based on a contemporary poetry Sarveshwar Dayal Saxena, who was her personal friend. This piece was base on his poem called “Coat” taken from his anthology “Khuntiyon par Tange Log / िूंटिमो ऩय िंगे रोग ”. The poet alluded through the image of a discarded coat, to people’s tendency to hang on to one peg or the other, never letting go of the past, unable to act independently and always looking for someone else to ensure their personal fulfillment. Although this choreography came about in rather emotional circumstances, the post-independence period saw the use of some contemporary poets in Kathak’s changing literary scape. However, poet Ashok Vajpeyi continues to bemoan that while in every department Kathak has evolved, in its literature it has remained stunted. Aditi mangaldas, who is a disciple of Kumudini Lakhia, is fast emulating her Guru in this dimension as well- of exploring

14 contemporary poetry. In her work “Uncharted Seas”, for the Drishtikon Dance company, Aditi very effectively used the words of J. Krishnamurty, the poetry of Meera, Rumi, Kabir and Josh Malihabadi. Thus the poetry used after independence has been on an all India slate. It started with a harking back to the classical roots and employed some amount of Sanskrit poetry. Thereafter it celebrated national icons on anniversaries, allowing for an exploration of their works. Just as every Indian felt that they had a right of every inch of India, dancers too, looking for creative inspirations did not hesitate to go seeking in different parts of India, but they also fell back on unexplored parts of their own literary heritage. Since independence, the poetry of Kathak has retained the traditional, but it has fearlessly explored a multi lingual array of new works as well.

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