It was a Saturday morning and I was busy trying to kill time just like all the other days of mine. I got a call from my friend Benny inviting me to join him in his meeting with Ananda Shankar Jayant, a classical dancer, glad that he called me up.
Within minutes of meeting Ananda I was impressed by her passion towards classical dance and her efforts to preserve it and make sure it is passed on to the next generation. The turmoils that Ananda has fought and overcome is worth a separate blog post on its own. Benny and Ananda were busy discussing about the Natyakala conference that was to be held shortly while I was busy munching away Gobi Manchurian, as dance was an alien subject to me. Ananda was also conducting a dance program Navarasa and I got an invite too.
The Krishna Gana Sabha which should easily accommodate 500+ people was sparsely populated and I went in wondering how boring it was going to be. I initially thought Navarasa meant nine different types of rasams (my mom makes only one type and I love that mom) but later understood that they meant nine different type of moods. I wondered how they were going to express the nine different moods in less than an hours time that thru Bharatha Natyam and how I will be able differentiate between the rasams given my expertise in dancing.
The beautiful damsels accompanied by couple of handsome guys came in one by one dancing to the tunes of the Navaras. The costumes were eye catchy and the dancers looked gorgeous as if they had come from a different planet. I got few instant crushes and was prepared to ogle at those pretty faces and kill time even if I didn't understand a bit of dance, but what happened after that was mesmerizing.
The entire performance was split into nine parts and each expression started with the performers bringing in a shawl and placing it in the podium and going on to dance their heart out. The grace with which they danced, the synchronicity of movements and their expressions communicated the different moods so beautifully that no one had to tell me the moods they were trying to portray. I was able to understand dance.
They portrayed love, laughter, fury, compassion, disgust, horror, heroism, wonder and peace thru their beautiful gestures, all just in less than an hours time. I experienced nine different mood swings and I thoroughly enjoyed them. It seemed as if time stood still when they danced, by the time it ended I was left gasping for more. The entire experience left me richer yearning to see more of it.
Given my limited knowledge about dance I don't want to go into the nuances of it but I would like to share something that disturbed me a lot. As soon as the program was over when I looked around it pained to see such a nice program not having the crowd it deserves. I felt we were ignoring and losing something precious.
Our richness is not decided by materialistic wealth we have but by our culture and heritage. I felt we were slowly alienating ourselves from our roots whose abundance will have to be seen and experienced to be believed. Caught in our fantasies and attempts to emulate things that are alien to us we are undergoing a cultural recession.
An economic recession can be overcome in a couple of years but a cultural recession will be tough to over come. How much time have each of us spent admiring our traditional forms of art that is so rich and entertaining. How many times have we visited a traditional art performance in person before dismissing it to be boring.
The purpose of this post is not to demean the art and culture that come from outside. We definitely need to enjoy them but in confluence with our own. We need to enjoy, admire and appreciate the richness we have without prejudice. If we can just make it a point to visit one traditional form of art and cultural show for every ten visits to movies, malls etc...
By ignoring our arts and our culture we are making ourselves poor that is what I realized after watching the performance. These traditional forms of art have been built and passed on to us over a period of centuries and it is our duty to make sure we pass it on to the next generation, else it will lead to a crisis that will be tough to overcome. A crisis called identity crisis.
Natyakala confernece Schedule - http://bit.ly/8Zozi1
I know you will want to be there. Entrance is free.
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