CHAPTER 3

TOUR OF CANADA, USA AND EUROPE IN 1962

The year 1962, was a watershed year not only in world politics, but for as well. On one hand, October of the year witnessed the world coming to the brink of a nuclear war, with the Cuban Missile Crisis, on the other hand, in October itself, India faced its first military invasion from China. According to Sumit Ganguly, India’s foreign policy can be divided into 3 distinct phases. The first phase would be the period immediately post- independence to 1962, the second phase can be identified as the period between 1962 to 1991, when India liberalized its economy, and the third phase from 1991 to the present.1

The first phase of India’s foreign policy was developed in a context of the history of the legacy that British India left behind. This legacy that independent India had been left behind with, was primarily that of poverty. India was therefore, not just struggling to recover from the devastation that had been wrecked on its economy by the British Raj, they had to do so in a divided world fraught with the tensions of the Cold War. According to Prof.

Muchkund Dubey, “The fundamental purpose of India’s Foreign Policy …is to promote its national interest…but there is a hierarchy of national interests…”2 In the first phase of this foreign policy, India, guided by the principle of Non-Alignment, sought to establish friendly relations with nation states across the globe. Coined by V. K. Krishna Menon, 3 India’s

1 Sumit Ganguly, ed, India's Foreign Policy: Retrospect and Prospect (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2010)

2 Muchkund Dubey, India's Foreign Policy: Coping with the Changing World (New Delhi. Orient Black Swan Private Limited, 2016)

3 H. W. Ali, India and the Non-aligned Movement (New Delhi: Adam Publishers, 2004) representative to the United Nations in the early 1950s, elucidated during his speech at the

United Nations, that the term non-alignment sought to give India and the other newly independent states of the world a third option of not aligning with either of the two blocs or in the battle lines drawn by bloc politics. A positive policy of promoting security and national interest, India during that phase sought to extend its hand in friendship not only through various treaties of friendship, which in turn were based on the Panchsheel, (the five principles of peaceful co-existence)4 but also create goodwill through various cultural exchanges. These cultural exchanges were part of the soft power initiatives that India undertook to promote friendly relations with nation-states. According to Joseph S. Nye, Jr, who coined the term 'Soft power', Soft Power is the “ability to achieve desired outcomes in international affairs through attraction rather than coercion”5 as opposed to the capital intensive hard military power to promote national security.

The establishment of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) in the

1950s (it was registered under the Societies Act in 1957), was a means of institutionalizing cultural diplomacy.6 It makes evident, India’s reliance on soft power to build its relations with other nation states.

According to its Memorandum of Association signed in 1956, the first objective of the Council, of the eight objectives mentioned, was to foster, revive and strengthen cultural relations between India and other countries by:

4 Panchsheel, accessed April 10, 2017, url: http://www.mea.gov.in/Uploads/PublicationDocs/191_panchsheel.pdf

5 A. K. Gupta, “Soft Power of the United States, China, and India: A Comparative Analysis,” Indian Journal of Asian Affairs, (2013): 37-57, accessed June 15, 2018, url: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43550355

6 http://www.iccr.gov.in/content/constitution (Accessed on May 5, 2019)

a. Promoting a wider knowledge and appreciation of their languages, literature and art

b. Establishing close contacts between universities and cultural institutions

c. Adopting all other measures to promote cultural relations7

The need to rely on cultural diplomacy also stems from the fact that this was the period of the Cold War. As history had already shown us, joining blocs also had a cost of its own. We had just come out of the yoke of colonialism, and proxy wars which we had already witnessed in the Korean War, and the on-going Vietnam War, were something we could ill afford; nor was it desirable at that point in time. Therefore, this dependence on cultural diplomacy, was in keeping with our principle of non-alignment, whereby, we sought to develop better relations through peaceful methods and cooperation, and one the ways to go ahead with it was the creation of goodwill through various cultural exchanges.

All of ’s performances in various parts of Europe as well as the performance in Seattle World Fair, in the year 1962, was organized by the Ministry of Scientific

Research and Cultural Affairs, Government of India. Sol Hurok, the internationally renowned impresario, hosted the rest of the performances in Canada and USA. Hurok’s association with

Uday Shankar dated back to the days when Uday Shankar was a member of Pavlova’s troupe.

Solomon Hurok sponsored all of Uday Shankar’s visits to the USA with his troupe.

This time round, Shankar and his troupe set sail on a ship from Bombay on

September 26, 1962. After sailing across the Arabian Sea, they first stopped at the port city of

7 Ibid Aden in Yemen. Then on the Red Sea, through the Suez Canal, they stopped at the Messina

Islands in Italy. During the stopover at Messina, the troupe members got a chance to visit the ruins of Pompeii and Mt. Vesuvius. From Messina, they sailed on to Naples, and then onward to Genoa. From Genoa, they travelled by train to Paris. The troupe members got to spend quite a few hours in Paris, visit the Eiffel Tower as well as all the major landmarks in Paris. From

Paris, the troupe took a train to a port in France and crossed the English Channel. After crossing the English Channel, they travelled by train to London.

They stayed in London for five days, visited all the well-known tourist sites like

Trafalgar Square, Madame Tassaud’s Wax Museum, the British Museum, the Commonwealth

Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum and various other places. Although they stayed in

London for five days, they did not perform in London. London was only a stopover. The troupe then flew for the next leg of the journey from London to New York. A television coverage had been arranged in a room at the New York International Airport itself. Uday Shankar and a few prominent members of his team, including Shanti Bose, were present for the event.

From New York, the troupe flew to Seattle. Their first performance in USA was in the city of Seattle. The troupe performed at the Seattle’s World Fair, where they represented

India. The Century 21 World’s Fair was hosted by Seattle between April 21 and October 21,

1962.8 President John F. Kennedy opened the fair with an inaugural speech which he delivered via telephone.9 Twenty four countries participated in the fair which had five theme areas: The

World of Science, The World of Tomorrow, The World of Commerce and Industry, The World

8 https://www.seattle.gov/cityarchives/exhibits-and-education/digital-document-libraries/century-21-worlds-fair Accessed on June 27, 2018

9 http://www.62worldsfair.com/ Accessed on June 27, 2018 of Art and The World of Entertainment.10 As per the official Guide Book of the World Fair,

Uday Shankar and his troupe performed at the Fair from October 2 to 7, 1962.11

10 http://historylink.org/File/2291 Accessed on June 27, 2018

11http://cdm15015.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15015coll3/id/2588/rec/7 Accessed on June 27, 2018

Image 37: Pg. 104 of the Guide Book of the Seattle World Fair 1962. Photograph courtesy The Seattle Public Library, Special Collections Online. 12

12http://cdm15015.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15015coll3/id/2588/rec/7 Accessed on June 27, 2018

Image 38: The musicians seated for the performance before the programme. Laxmi Shankar, seated in the centre, was in charge of the music and used to conduct the musicians during the tour. Courtesy, private collection of Shanti Bose

From Seattle, the troupe went on to perform in Vancouver. From Vancouver, they flew to Montreal. From Montreal, to New York. After their performance in New York, the troupe went on to perform in Detroit, Chicago, Kansas City, Denver, Los Angeles –

Hollywood, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Oklahoma City, San Antonio, Houston, New Orleans,

Atlanta, Washington D.C, Baltimore, Boston, Cleveland, and then finally flew back to New

York.

Image 39: Uday Shankar and clicked by Bose himself during a break on an intercity trip. Courtesy, private collection of Shanti Bose

After performing their last show in New York, Uday Shankar and his troupe flew back to London, where they had a stopover in the city for a few hours on the return journey.

From London, they went on to perform in Amsterdam in The Netherlands. From Netherlands they flew to Germany. In Germany, they had quite a few performances in the cities of Bonn,

Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Munich and Berlin. The next country which the troupe visited was

Yugoslavia. From Yugoslavia, they went on to Poland. They then went on to perform in

Copenhagen in Denmark and Stockholm in Sweden. The troupe’s last performance in Europe was in the Norwegian capital of Oslo.

As mentioned before, during the entire leg of the European tour, Uday Shankar and his troupe, officially represented India – these performances having been organized by the

Ministry of Scientific Research and Cultural Affairs, Government of India. Uday Shankar and his troupe returned by ship from Europe to India. The first ship they boarded on the way back was equipped to travel on icy waters, as winter had already set in. This was a novel experience recollects Bose. Republic Day on 26th January, 1963, was celebrated on the ship. The troupe members all joined in singing the song, Saare Jahaan Se Achha, penned by the Urdu poet,

Mohammad Iqbal, which had taught the troupe members. After a tour of five months – 2 months in America and 3 months in Europe, Uday Shankar and his troupe finally docked in Bombay on February 3, 1963.

The world had in the meantime, been on the brink of destruction as a result of the Cuban Missile Crisis and, India, after suffering a devastating blow from the Sino-Indian

War of 1962, had now begun a shift in its policies from using soft power to generate goodwill, to developing its military capability to defend its borders. In fact, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the thirteen-day crisis that lasted from October 16 to 28 in 1962, was what kept Kennedy from addressing the closing session of the Seattle World Fair on October 21, 1962, although the official reason given was that he was down with a bad cold! In fact, a cheeky headline reads

“President Kennedy's Cold War ‘cold’ supersedes Seattle World's Fair closing ceremonies on

October 21, 1962.”13

The preparation for this trip which began in September 1962, had begun quite a few months earlier. During the summer of 1962, Uday Shankar gave the troupe a month’s vacation. Once they returned, they started with their preparations for a tour of Canada, USA and Europe with their production of Samanya Kshati and other items.

13 http://www.historylink.org/File/967 Accessed on June 27, 2018 The preparation began with the troupe members attending a general class conducted by Uday Shankar at his home on Golf Club Road, . The goal of these classes was twofold – the first to help focus the minds and to bring about supreme coordination and synchronization of the body and mind; and the second, to maximize the dexterity of the performers. The dancers had to exercise all the various parts of the body, especially the limbs and joints. Apart from these exercises, improvisation classes were also held to help enhance hone creativity in the dancers from being simple performers to artists. During these improvisation classes, due to shortage of space, Uday Shankar used to pair off the dancers and give them a subject. The dancers had to express their thoughts on the subject with through their imagination and creativity, by composing a dance.

After a month of these general and improvisation classes, Uday Shankar took the entire troupe to Madras for a period of four months. The reason behind this move was to ensure that the focus of the performers was not hampered by any personal distractions. They used to rehearse for 7 hours a day, 6 days a week at Uday Shankar’s home in Madras. Sunday was the only day of rest; but towards the latter part of the preparations, rehearsals were held on

Sundays as well.

Apart from Samanya Kshati, the items that the dancers learned and prepared for the tour included, The Great Renunciation, Astrapuja, Bramhaputra, Khadya – which included his famous composition of Labour and Machinery and Panthadi. They had also prepared the

Harvest Dance – but they did not stage it during the tour. Apart from these items, Amala

Shankar used to perform to the song ‘Krishna Ni Begame Baro’ while Uday Shankar performed his famous item Indra. Other than these solos, Uday Shankar and Amala Shankar also performed with the troupe members in the short ballets of Bramhaputra, Khadya and The Great

Renunciation.

Image 40: The cast of Samanya Kshati, after their performance at Hollywood. Courtesy, private collection of Shanti Bose

To go into a little more detail about each item, included below is a write up on each of these items as published in the souvenirs during the tour. The reason for going into the items in detail is to reflect the contention of this thesis that Uday Shankar’s art form was not merely a form of entertainment, but a mirror of modern India and its problems. They were also a mirror to the rich cultural heritage of India in terms of the myths and folklores.

As a representative of the Indian government and a cultural ambassador of India

– a title conferred on him by the Mayor of Calcutta in the early 1930s, at a formal reception –

Uday Shankar tried to present to the Western audience, a balanced visual of not only the past rich cultural heritage, but the challenges faced by modern India as well. While it may be argued that the former could be done through classical dances as well, Uday Shankar did it through the use of simple creative movements instead of mudras which would not have been understood by the layman. The items presented, as published in the souvenir of the trip were as follows:

Khadya

In days of yore, happy peasants lived in a village rich in nature’s bounty.

Farming was their only livelihood. The machine age had not come their way. One of the village boys was educated in a large city and learned the techniques of the machine world. He returned to the village and took into confidence the son of the old village Headman. The old Headman and his son’s newly wedded bride disapproved of their ideas of exploiting the villagers. The girls became modern and disregarded their elders. Gradually all were reduced to automations.

The villagers realized their error and revolted. They were arrested and forced to work, but managed eventually to escape and return to their happy life in the fields. The Headman and the exploiters reached a compromise and all realized that the help of machinery in the form of tractors aided their agricultural pursuits and a new harmony between the dignity of labour and the contribution of machinery was attained.

Astrapuja

Worshipping their arms, the warriors boast of their weapons and flourish them.

They earn the approbation and good wishes of their women as they leave for battle.

Image 41: A scene from Astrapuja as presented in 1962, with Bose third from left in Copenhagen, during the tour of 1962. Courtesy, private collection of Shanti Bose

Krishna Ni Begame Baro

Yashoda calls out to her son Krishna, and in her overwhelming love for him, sees in him the whole Universe.

Panthadi

The item used to begin with two girls entering the stage with an imaginary ball, which they would play with. Finally, while playing, one of the girls would throw the ball so forcefully, that it would seem as if the ball had disappeared among the audience, and that is how the item ended.

Indra According to Vedic tradition, Indra is the Lord of the Heavens, the Stars, the

Clouds, Thunder, Lightning and Rain. As the Supreme, he is here represented in the act of initiating the lesser gods in the perfect art of dance.

Bramhaputra

The mighty river Bramhaputra flows in serene majesty and life in the fields and in the village goes on smoothly. But trouble arises: there are whispers. Two lovers are seen in suspicious circumstances. They are madly in love and know not what is right and what is wrong. Suddenly the river overflows its banks and in its mighty fury and floods cause havoc.

The people attribute it to the sin of the lovers. The lovers themselves are caught in the floods, drowned and washed away in the rolling waters. The floods recede and life goes on as usual in the fields and in the village. The Bramhaputra flows again in serene majesty, only a scarf was left on the bank of the river.

The Great Renunciation

“Regard the world as an empty trifle,” said Lord Buddha, “only then will the world yield to happiness, enabling you to live blissfully in all life’s vicissitudes.” At his birth holy men predicted that Prince Siddharth (as Lord Buddha was known before the renunciation) shall either be the King of Kings − trampling on the necks of enemies, or, he shall tread the path of self-denial and deliver the world from ignorance. To prevent the Prince from following the path of self-denial, his father Suddhodana, put him in a palace, with his Queen Yashodhara, where he could not come face to face with woe, want, pain, plague, age or death.

One day Prince Siddharth wanted to see what lay beyond the palace. While passing through the streets, the prince saw a sick man on the road. He asked his charioteer, “Why is it that he pants and moans and gasps?” His charioteer replies that it is because of illness that “comes like a sly snake and stings unseen?” “Then all men live in fear?” asked the

Prince, “and none can say I shall sleep happy and so I shall wake?”

The Prince passed along and an old man crept forth. The Prince asked, “What thing is this who seems a man, so miserable, so horrible and so sad?” Channa, his charioteer answered that he was an aged man, who was like them years before but the thievish years had pillaged him of his strength and form. Then spoke the Prince, “But shall this come to me should

I live so long, and to my sweet Yashodhara, my lovely Queen?”

The prince passed further and saw people carrying a dead man. The Prince pointed to them and Channa replied, “Those men are carrying the dead.” The Prince asked, “Is this the end which comes to all who live?”

The Prince passed further and saw a holy man lifting his hands in prayer to

Heaven. Channa said, “This is the man who prays for the well-being of himself and all the people, having left the world and its pleasures.”

The Prince returned to the palace with a heavy heart. That night, Queen

Yashodhara dreamt a frightful dream, which ended with a voice crying, “The time is come,” and in her tears, she slept again. That night, the stars in the sky ranged together and appeared to ask the Prince, “this is the Night, choose the way of greatness or the way of God – to reign as King of Kings or wander alone.” Prince Siddharth chose the latter. “I will depart; I shall seek the truth for all men’s sake. The kingdom I crave is more than all things which change to death.” He lay aside his youth, his joys and his Queen Yashodhara and softly stepped out with his hands clasped on his heart.

Apart from dance, a very important and integral aspect of any performance is its costumes, music and lighting. Each member of the troupe was actively involved with and learned these aspects of showmanship under Uday Shankar’s guidance. Each dancer was given the responsibility for his or her own costumes. The costumes used to be stitched and kept ready in such a manner, that the dancers could change in and out of them in a matter of minutes and the audience could hardly make out that it was the same artist who was performing on stage again. The dancers were given new costumes for a few items of this tour, for the rest of the items they had altered old costumes; and in a few cases rearranged a few patterns on them.

They learned how to tie different kinds of paagdis – the traditional Indian headgear tied out of a long piece of cloth. Some of the paagdis were of course already stitched to enable quick changes. The hair decorations used by the women were readymade as they were rather intricate and had to be adorned very quickly. The dancers used to have separate ornaments for each item, or dance in the ballets, as per the demands of the scenes they were enacting.

Shankar used to have huge fireproof and waterproof boxes to carry all the paraphernalia that the troupe required. Apart from his instruments and lights, these also contained costumes. Each costume box used to hold about 6 – 8 wooden trays of costumes for the performers. Each tray was about 3 feet in length, 2 feet in width and about 5 inches in height. Every individual tray contained costumes for all the items to be performed by each individual dancer, along with their ornaments. Sometimes if a dancer performed fewer items, he or she would share their box/tray with another dancer who had fewer items in their kitty as well. After the performances, the dancers had to rearrange their costumes and keep them in their respective trays. A person had been engaged to travel with the troupe for the explicit purpose of ironing the costumes before every show.

Apart from costumes, in order to identify that we the troupe members were all a part of Uday Shankar’s troupe, he gave all the troupe members a uniform of prince coats and overcoats. They had to don them while travelling from one destination to another, and when attending formal gatherings. As he mentions in the televised interview with Shambhu Mitra, soft skill training in etiquette was also imparted to all the troupe members before international tours.14

Apart from Uday Shankar and Amala Shankar, the troupe members for this tour comprised Pappu Raghavan (Troupe Coach and Ballet Master), Ashoke Nandy (Ballet

Registrar), Asit Chatterjee, Raman Nair Vasudevan, Animesh Bakshi, Ganesh Dutta, and

Shanti Bose. Shanti Bose was a stage name used by Amarendra Bose only from the 1968 tour when Uday Shankar suggested so, as that was the name he was commonly known by. The souvenir of this trip carries the name Amarendra Bose. Meena Nandi, Kabita Bakshi, N.

Jayashree, P.S. Vasantha, Kalpana Roy and Purnima Bose were the other dancers on this tour.

14 An interview of Uday Shankar by Shambhu Mitra on DD Bharati, accessed April 28, 2019, url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHq-uBio5vE&t=14s

Image 42: The credits page from the Souvenir of the tour of 1962. Note: Shanti Bose was yet to adopt his stage name formally, and was known by his given name, Amarendra Bose. Courtesy, private collection of Shanti Bose

Image 43: Bose with Laxmi Shankar and Rajendra Shankar’s daughter Viji on the left, Ashok Nandi’s (Amala Shankar’s brother) daughter, Nandita in the centre and on the extreme right, in front of Universal Studios. can be seen standing on the extreme left. Courtesy, private collection of Shanti Bose

Music for Samanya Kshati as well as for the other items was rearranged under the direction of Lakshmi Shankar, as the music was performed live during the tours abroad.

She was also the vocalist for Samanya Kshati. Married to Rajendra Shankar, Lakshmi Shankar was Uday Shankar’s sister-in-law. The other musicians on this tour included Rabin Das on the

Sarod, Soumen Dey on the Flute, Tarun Ganguly on the Drums, Ranjan Mazumdar on the

Sitar, Sambhunath Mukherjee on Percussion, and Uday Shankar’s son Ananda Shankar on the

Sitar and Percussion.

Image 44: Bose with Ananda Shankar during the tour in Europe. Courtesy, private collection of Shanti Bose

Costumes were designed by Amala Shankar. Uday Shankar’s Personal Manager was his cousin, Bhudeb Shankar. Chiranjilal Shah deserves special mention for being with the troupe for the longest period of time. He used to be fondly and respectfully addressed as Shaji.

He had been with Uday Shankar from his days since 1939. Uday Shankar had complete confidence in him and it was he who used to check out the suitability of the stage, the backstage and the greenrooms before every performance, in order to ensure that the performers did not face any difficulty during the performance.

Image 45: Pappu Raghavan the Ballet Master for Shankar’s troupe with Bose, who would later become the Ballet Master for the troupe in 1965. Clicked on the return journey to India, aboard the ship. Courtesy, private collection of Shanti Bose

A tour as important as the one discussed above, where Uday Shankar and his troupe represented India and were goodwill ambassadors, has not been discussed in detail in any literature written on Uday Shankar till date.

Image 46: Souvenir Cover of the 1962 tour of USA. Courtesy, private collection of Shanti Bose

Image 47: Souvenir cover of tour of 1962 in Europe. Courtesy, private collection of Shanti Bose