PAPER 4

Detail Study Of Kathak, Nautch Girls, Nritta, Nritya, Different Gharana-s, Present Status, Institutions, Artists

Module 14 Some Prominent Gurus of Kathak

While many learn any art form, only few become its main benchmark. These few, in each generation, stand out from the hundreds who learn and earn from the art form. The phenomenon of attaining stardom itself is long drawn or uncertain but some beget it easily or instantly. Gurus were earlier not interested in teaching all. They chose to teach only a handful, who were totally committed to them and the art form. Since they did not teach for money, they could be selective and thus ensure quality. Today, we don’t have gurus; we have teachers who are interested in having many students worldwide!

We can easily divide gurus and stars in the last century (100 years), generation wise. For instance, the first generation of gurus was not even in the market, as they are now! They did not need to earn name or fame or money. These gurus were just art-intensive and wished to be immersed in it fully. Some got lucky that they had royal patrons and support of zamindars or courts.

In this phase, we can think of Lucknow gurus, forefathers of Kalka-Bindadin under Wajid Ali Shah whose reign was short but his achievements were many. With their patronage, there developed a distinct style of Kathak, today known popularly as Lucknow gharana.

Wajid Ali Shah (ruled from 1847-56) was devoted to Raas and dressed up as Krishna and played the role of Krishna in court. Based on this, he created the operatic form Rahas, a form of Kathak that Raas dovetailed with and Rahas partook of. He was also a literary giant, having written scores of compositions and two lasting books - Najjo and Banni- both pertaining to Kathak technique and poetry. Several sketches detail each stance and position of Kathak body and in doing these treatises, the king also saved and shared with posterity the early evolutionary stages of Lucknow branch of Kathak. He authored Saut-ul- Mubarak. These books showed how the form evolved in courts and how teachers of repute came from far and helped the king document a style which was a synthesis of Hindu and Muslim cultures. Wajid Ali was himself very involved with all arts and is credited with the creation of thumri, a form of music and poetry that can be easily used for dancing Kathak and singing. A gifted composer, Diwan-i-Akhtar, Husn-i-Akhtar contain his ghazals. He is said to have composed many new ragas too.

Then we can think of Pt. Achchan Maharaj (1893 – 1946) in Rampur, then Delhi. He trained many and can be hailed as a fountainhead, since his two illustrious brothers and son also excelled themselves in the art form. The eldest son of Kalka Prasad, he was trained by his father and uncle Bindadin. He

served for a long time as court dancer at Rampur, Raigarh, some other states of north India and returned to Lucknow. Years later, when Kathak had fallen into disrepute, Achchan Maharaj was brought to Delhi by Kapila Vatsyayan. He started teaching and with his 10-year old son Birju, charmed the connoisseurs of Delhi. Both Bindadin and Achchan Maharaj were gifted with a phenomenal capacity to evoke and project emotion and feelings in both dancing and singing.

His brother Lachchu Maharaj (1907-1978) went to Mumbai to seek his fortune in films, where he made significant contribution to Hindi film choreography. Lachchu Maharaj was famous for his bhava. The first main film using story of a dancer - a courtesan - Anarkali was Mughal-E-Azam(1960), in which K. Asif used Madhubala who danced mostly Kathak, composed by Lachchu Maharaj and Shambhu Maharaj. Mughal-e-Azam enchanted audiences with its majestic sets, elaborate dance sequences and soulful music. The dance sequences featuring Madhubala and hundreds of junior artistes took the audience’s breath away. Pakeezah was another film choreographed by Pt Lachchu Maharaj with elaborate Kathak dance sequences.

Shambhu Maharaj (1904 - 1970) was the youngest of the three famous sons of Kalka Prasad. As he had a passion for music, he learnt thumri and khayal from Ustad Rahimuddin. At the invitation of Nirmala Joshi, the founding secretary of the Sangeet Natak Akademi, he moved to Delhi in 1955 where he taught Kathak at the fledgling Bharatiya Kala Kendra set up by Sumitra Charat Ram. He was an able teacher and trained many gifted dancers like Maya Rao, her sister Chitra Venugopal, Bela

Arnab and Kumudini Lakhia.1 Shambhu Maharaj had extraordinary command over bhava. He also devised the courtly style of sitting and performing which made it less hurried and more elegant. He made efforts to revive the use of ashtapadi, certain thumris and bhajans and other nritya pieces in Kathak.

Birju Maharaj was initially trained by his father Achchan Maharaj and later by his uncle Shambhu Maharaj. He taught for many years at Bharatiya Kala Kendra, Delhi and was Head of Faculty and Director at Kathak Kendra. Birju Maharaj uplifted Kathak to great heights with his Kathak dance dramas. As a creative choreographer, he has given Kathak dance a new dimension through his fascinating group compositions. He retired in 1998 after which he opened his own dance school Kalashram in Delhi. He is a versatile artist, a vocalist, percussionist, music composer, poet and painter. Birju Maharaj has also contributed to Kathak in films. He directed dance, composed music and sung playback for two classical dance sequences in the film, Shatranj ke Khiladi directed by Satyajit Ray. He has done choreography for the films Dil To Pagal Hai, Gadar, Devdas and Vishwaroopam.

Then we have gurus in Benaras gharana – Pt Sukhdev Maharaj, Sitara Devi, Gopi Krishna and Pt. Hazarilal.

Sukhdev Maharaj was a dancer and Sanskrit scholar, who researched Natya Shastra and was a Kathak dancer-teacher, a member of the Royal Court of Nepal, and his wife Matsya Kumari was related to Nepal royal family. In the 1920s, Sukhdev

Maharaj met Tagore who encouraged him to revive Kathak and elevate it to a dignified status. Sukhdev Maharaj introduced reforms to revive Kathak by including religious elements - unlike what the nautch girls did - and it slowly became popular. He also taught Kathak to his daughters Alokananda, Tara, Dhanno (later Sitara Devi) and sons Chaube and Pande. They returned to Varanasi and set up a dancing school where the daughters of local prostitutes were also admitted, and Sukhdev Maharaj battled social ostracism to popularize Kathak.2

Sitara Devi (1920-2014) trained under her father Sukhdev Maharaj (Benaras gharana) and in Lucknow gharana. Rabindranath Tagore described her as Nritya Samragini, meaning the empress of dance, after watching her performance when she was just 16 years old. She drew from the themes, poetry and choreography collected by her father in her choreographies and was inspired from the environment around her. Sitara Devi also acted in a few films at a young age but gave it up to concentrate on Kathak. Her dances were so popular that the film posters even highlighted “dances by Sitara Devi.”

Gopi Krishna (1931-1994) was born into a family of Kathak dancers. His mother Tara was the sister of Sitara Devi. When he was 11 years old, Gopi Krishna began training under his grandfather Sukhdev Maharaj. He also learned from Shambhu Maharaj. In 1952, 17 year old Gopi Krishna became one of the youngest choreographers in Hindi film history when he was hired to choreograph dances for Madhubala in Saqi. In 1955, he appeared as dancer-actor in

his first film Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baaje that is filled with Gopi Krishna’s dances. He choreographed for many films like Grahasti (1963), Dastaan, Mehbooba, Umrao Jaan, Naache Mayuri (1986) and The Perfect Murder (1988). His choreography was often punctuated with sharp transitions, numerous chakkars and a frenetic pace of movements inspired particularly by Kathak. During the 1960s and 70s, he toured India's border posts, entertaining soldiers with Sunil Dutt’s Ajanta Arts Cultural Troupe. Gopi Krishna later established the Nateshwar Nritya Kala Mandir in Mumbai.

Pt. Hazarilal from Punjab gharana used to teach at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan in Bombay. He married his disciple Sunaina and settled in Bombay and taught many. Sunaina is the Director of Natawari Dance Academy. Both were instrumental in training many like Sudharshan Dheer among others.

Next come the stalwarts of the Jaipur gharana - Sundarprasad, Narayan Prasad, Devilal and Durgalal.

Guru Sundar Prasad (1891-1970) trained under his father Chunnilal and the finer intricacies of the art from Maharaj Bindadin of Lucknow. In the 30s, he started Bindadin School of Kathak in Bombay and spent 20 years there training disciples like MohanraoKalyanpurkar, Pooviah sisters, Shirin Vajifdar, Menaka, Sohanlal, Hiralal and Roshan Kumari. In 1958, he joined Shriram Bharatiya Kala Kendra at Delhi and trained several dancers like Maya Rao, Uma Sharma, Urmila Nagar, Durgalal, Kumudini Lakhia and Shovana Narayan.3

Guru Narayan Prasad was the youngest son of Hanuman Prasad of Jaipur. From age 8, he started training under his father and uncle Hari Prasad and became a talented child artiste. He had equal command over laya and bhava and was at ease presenting layakaris in difficult talas. Among the dancers of the Jaipur school he was a master of shringar rasa. He played the tabla and pakahawaj and was an excellent singer. A devotee of Krishna, he composed many kavits and thumris based on Krishna leela. He trained many dancers.

Devi Lal (1942-1976) came from a family of musicians in Rajasthan, and had his initial lessons under his father Pt Omkar Lal. He studied Kathak under Pt. Sundar Prasad, Shambhu Maharaj and Birju Maharaj. He toured extensively as a dancer and instrumentalist. His untimely death robbed the world of a promising and accomplished Kathak artist.4

Durga Lal (1948-1990) was initiated into the art by his father Omkar Lal. He learnt Jaipur gharana Kathak from his brother Devi Lal and Pt Sundar Prasad. He learnt pakhawaj from Pt Purushottam Das. He had a long association with Shriram Bharatiya Kala Kendra as student and artist. He later taught at Kathak Kendra and trained students like Uma Dogra, Nandini Singh, Harish Rawat, SharmisthaPranab Mukherjee, SmritiMisra, Rakhi Dheer, Jayant Kastuar.5

Pt. Sunderlal Gangani (1929 -2013) settled in Baroda in 1951, began teaching at M.S. University of Baroda. Guru Sunderlal gave a new dimension to Kathak. Kathak in rashi, Kathak in grammar and Kathak in mathematics. The rashis or sun signs of

famous characters from the Ramayan were woven into kavits. Similarly, he played with the alphabet and grammar, creating kavits starting with each letter of the ‘ka’ barakhari to invoke images from Krishna’s life, or using the letters ra, raa, ri, ree, etc., or some other section of the alphabet. He brought out the different nature of the numbers and created compositions suiting each one. Another unique composition was the Ashta Nayika, in which the nayikas are described succinctly in just one line each. While Sunderlal moulded, in his 39 years at the university (from where he retired as a reader in 1989), a large number of students who perform across the world, perhaps the credit went more to the university than the maestro.6 Pt. Harish and Jagdish Gangani are the sons of Sunderlal Gangani. They are carrying forward their father’s legacy in the dance department, M.S. University of Baroda.

Maya Rao (1928 – 2014) had a flair for dancing, but born and brought up in an orthodox middle class family where elders did not permit their daughters to learn dancing. When she was 12 years old, she watched Uday Shankar perform with his large troupe of musicians and dancers at the BRV theatre in Bangalore and this performance left an indelible impression in her young mind. She got a dance scholarship to study Kathak for 4 years at the Bharatiya Kala Kendra in Delhi under Shambhu Maharaj, who joined as its first guru in January 1955. She was the first Indian lady to be selected by the Govt. of India for the USSR Cultural Scholarship in Choreography. In August 1964 she started the Natya Institute of Choreography in Delhi. In 1987, the Natya Institute of Kathak and Choreography,

India’s first and only college offering a 3 year BA Degree in Choreography was established in Bangalore with the assistance of the Government of Karnataka. Her daughter Madhu Nataraj and her students continue her legacy.

Rohini Bhate (1933-2008) was principal disciple of Mohanrao Kalyanpurkar based in Pune and did much to popularize and promote Kathak in Pune. She excelled in dance drama productions and also taught and trained many soloists. Her body of work saw success much later in her end years, when she was also decorated with SNA award and many other titles. Shama Bhate retains her style and many illustrious students have furthered her art.

Kumudini Lakhia (along with Birju Maharaj) introduced group choreographies in Kathak, which was traditionally a solo dance form. She is known for her interpretation of Kathak combining purely classical movements with contemporary aesthetics. She began her career dancing with Ram Gopal as he toured the West, then became a dancer and choreographer in her own right. A minimal approach to costumes, lighting and set design has given her work a sophisticated elegance. It was her passion to give a scientific meaning to the Kathak movements. She founded the Kadamb School of Dance and Music in Ahmedabad in 1967 and has done more than 70 successful productions all over the world. Daksha Sheth, Aditi Mangaldas, Maulik Shah, Vaishali and Prashant Shah are some of her prime disciples.

Pratap Pawar, popularly known as ‘India's Divine Dancer’ is the first ganda-bandh disciple of Birju Maharaj. He was initiated

into Kathak by Maya Rao. His initial inspiration came from Vinod Chopra, whose dance items for Bombay films were a major hit with youngsters like Pratap. He joined Bharatiya Kala Kendra in 1960 and performed in several productions. After several performance tours, he served as staff artiste of the Kathak Kendra before migrating to England in 1980. Pawar’s works range from classical Kathak to contemporary fusion; from solo performance to group dance drama. Pawar has undertaken a lot of work in bringing together different cultures by blending Indian dance with Flamenco, Caribbean, modern dance, etc.

Gurus are not made but born. Becoming a star is matter of fate, hard work and good luck. Many dancers shine like stars and some fall like shooting stars! Many become stars overnight due to a film or show and many struggle long before becoming one. Stardom in classical dance has no method. It is chance and often now, media exposure and political support. Of late, it is purely patronage and power backed with spunk. In earlier days, it was substance, foundation and guru’s grace.

We see in each generation some two or three names only dominate and attaining stardom. This is natural to all forms. Bharatanatyam had the same phenomenon, as did Orissi. In most classical forms, where solo dance is important, only 3 or 4 names in each generation come to forefront as main exponents.

In first generation, we saw Madame Menaka, Sadhona Bose and Shambhu Maharaj. Madame Menaka established her own

dance troupe in 1934 in Mumbai and started dance classes at her residence. She discarded traditional Kathak lyrics and took the help of trained musicians to create orchestral ensembles, a break from the traditional way Indian music was played. Thus her productions were a clever merger of traditionalism and innovation.7 At Berlin Olympics in July 1936, Menaka and her group participated in the Dance Olympiad for two days and the first three prizes were won by Menaka, Ram Narayan and Gourishankar. This international recognition for Kathak helped boost the popularity of the dance form. Sadhona Bose was popular as a glamorous heroine of the silver screen in the 1930s and 1940s. She even sang her own songs in some of her films including her first Alibaba. An English version of her best- known film, Raj Nartaki, was distributed in the USA as Court Dancer.

In the second generation we saw stars like Sitara Devi, Damayanti Joshi and Roshan Kumari. Damayanti Joshi (1928- 2004) was the chosen protégé of Madame Menaka, who adopted her as a daughter when she was four. Damayanti also trained in the Lucknow gharana and was a successful solo artiste. She danced and toured the world in Menaka's troupe from the time she was five and by 15 she had already performed at all the major cities of Europe. Damayanti’s entire dancing career was centred on the concern to make Kathak a dance performed outside the court. Roshan Kumari, an exponent of the Jaipur Gharana, has danced in films Waris (1954) and Basant Bahar (1957). She runs Nritya Kala Kendra at

Mumbai from 1971. In Parineeta (Hindi, 1953), Roshan Kumari and Gopi Krishna give a dazzling duet performance.

Then we saw stars of the form like Maya Rao, Birju Maharaj and Kumudini Lakhia. Some of their students who attained stardom are Saswati Sen, Shovana Narayan, Rani Karna and Durgalal. In the next generation we saw Daksha Sheth, Aditi Mangaldas and Shobana Jeyasingh. In recent years we see new stars of the form rise like Anuj Mishra (the son of Pt Arjun Mishra), Tushar Bhat and Prashant Shah.

Shovana Narayan has produced international collaborative works with leading dancers of Western classical Ballet, Spanish Flamenco, Tap dance, Buddhist chants with Buddhist monks as well as to the compositions of western classical composers. Aditi Mangaldas is today recognized for her artistry, technique, eloquence and characteristic energy that mark every performance. Like her gurus, she has attempted to break new ground by using her knowledge and experience of Kathak as a springboard to evolve a contemporary dance vocabulary, infused with the spirit of the classical. Daksha Sheth decided to experiment outside the dance form’s boundaries and drew from her experience of Kathak, Chhau, Kalaripayattu and Mallakhamb to combine tradition with contemporary Indian dance.

Once one becomes a star, one has to work harder to maintain it. Thus, stardom is first level, maintaining it for long, is next. Being a star also means one needs to be an example and matter in larger scheme of things. It also becomes important to

mentor and pass on the art form. Thus, today's gurus and stars have lot of responsibility.