The KVN bani

In one of his last concerts, KVN  moved listeners to tears with the depth of feeling of his rendering of Gopalakrishna Bharati’s, Varugalamo Ayya, Nandan’s desperate plea before the lord.

It was hardly surprising, for he was known for the emotional impact his music had on listeners, but he was himself always in control of the sruti- and laya-perfect music he purveyed.

Sangita Kalanidhi KV Narayanaswamy’s music continues to have a huge impact on many of the present generation of singers, the youngest of whom probably never heard him live.

I asked some of them why they liked KVN’s singing so much. None came up with an answer that really answered my question. It is as if the young musicians, both men and women, have turned to the quietude and bhava of his singing almost intuitively in their quest for beauty in their art. One of them said she admired KVN’s vocal technique, which he had devised to suit his voice; it put no strain on his voice or physique.

She described his style as a blend of melody and vishayam, with in-built rhythm and without undue emphasis on kanakku.

All the young musicians I spoke to agreed that his niraval singing went beyond stitching words and melody together to seamlessly integrate the rhythmic dimension as well.

Was his voice ever a powerful rather than a mellifluous one? Few recordings prove the existence of such a reality. His career is generally believed to have been divided by a heart condition into two distinct phases. Some of the early recordings hint at a more full-bodied, slightly more akaram-oriented style of singing than the later KVN voice.

But the KVN way has been a continuum uninterrupted by stylistic changes. It is already becoming evident that a number of young vocalists, of his and other sishya paramparas, are proving to be exemplars of his melody-rich school of music. I’m sure we shall soon be regularly speaking of the KVN bani.

His was effortless music of a kind we rarely come across. It has been said that he became “immersed in his music, thoroughly forgetting himself and thereby providing a divine experience for the listener.”

This effortlessness could be very misleading. I generally avoid cricketing metaphors, but I cannot resist the temptation today. Sir Garfield Sobers, arguably the greatest cricketer of all time, did look effortless while batting, bowling or fielding in a Test match. He indeed rarely practised in the nets in his mature years. Hidden, however, were years of strenuous practice, or rather sheer enjoyment of playing the game endlessly on the beaches and grounds of his native Barbados.

Likewise, KVN was known not to labour too much over pre-concert sadhakam in his mature years but to go on stage and sing spontaneously. The effortlessness was therefore more than mere appearance. What were not visible were the years of effort behind it.

His sishyas and associates knew that though he was blessed with natural fidelity to sruti, he was never satisfied during practice until he was certain he had got the notes absolutely right. In fact, sruti perfection was an article of faith with KVN, and lack of it in a sishya was the only thing that ever made him angry. The best tribute an aspiring vocalist can pay to KVN’s memory would be tireless practice to guarantee sruti suddham, not imitation of his style of singing.

Gowri Ramnarayan once said, “Some musicians appeal to the mind, to the intellect. Other musicians appeal to the heart. But only a very few in the history of music appeal to the soul. They charge the spirit within.” She was obviously referring to the rare musician that KVN was.

Could such soulful music rooted in all the vital aspects of music come together in a single musician by serendipity? Perhaps, they can, in one so naturally musical as KVN. But his teachers and mentors other than his Gurunathar Ariyakudi–whom he worshipped—included his father Kollenkode Viswanatha Bhagavatar and Papa Venkataramiah, both violinists, and mridangam maestro Palghat Mani Iyer. (A rare photograph of KVN playing the tavil indicates the extent of his laya proficiency). His love of the Dhanammal school of music and his experience of learning songs from the family were also a significant influence on his music.

All these varied influences must be the background behind his mastery of raga and tala as well as his superb team ethos that invariably energized his accompanists to give of their best in his concerts.

It was my good fortune that I had several interactions with KVN and his family and a whole brood of sishyas—towards the end of the 20^th century, right up to a few months before he passed away.

Assigned the task of editing and publishing his biography in Tamil by journalist Neelam of Swadesamitran fame, and an English translation by Justice VR Krishna Iyer, as well as several tributes by his admirers, I ended up also interviewing his family and his disciples including Prashanth Hemmige, Balaji Shankar, Pattabhiram Pandit, Karthik and Sudhir—to add weight to the slim volume.

Through many informal sessions at his home, I got to see at close quarters evidence of his endearing qualities of heart, his natural musicality (including his tendency to even speak in his singing sruti), his lovely habit of whistling some raga or kriti, and his affectionate hospitality. His students, a constant presence at the Narayanaswamy residence at Mandaveli, termed it “sishyakulavasam”. It was KVN and Padma who looked after them with love and concern, not the other way around.

KVN’s son Viswanathan confirms that KVN forgot the world in his pursuit of music. “He did not even know which branch of engineering I was studying,” he told me. He praised the Sruti commemorative volume on KVN soon after his death as the best tribute he read, Pattabhi Raman’s interview with Padma Narayanaswamy in particular.

He drew my attention to a reference in it to a conversation between KVN and Jon Higgins. Higgins wanted to know why audiences sat entranced when KVN was rendering Tyagaraja yoga vaibhavam, but tried to slip away when Higgins sang it. KVN explained to Higgins how to go about investing the song with appeal, but startled him by saying he learnt the song from a Higgins record.

Viswanathan also spoke of KVN’s mastery of concert music. He never asked anyone what he or she thought of his music. Once on stage, he was absolutely confident. He lifted the audience to a different plane when he sang songs like Varugalamo, Krishna nee begane, Enneramum, Aliveni, Mayamma and other favourites like Kana vendamo or Tiruvadi saranam, songs of total surrender. 

The listener was invariably moist-eyed, but KVN was in full control. According to KNV, a famous mridanga vidwan said he never had to worry about an exodus during tani, because everyone stayed to listen to KVN’s soul-stirring post-main pieces.

Another devoted sishya has been a close friend of mine. The self-effacing, now US-based Tulsi Ram (he was then known as Toufiq Tuzeme) was a French-Algerian disciple completely devoted to KVN, who in turn showered his affection on him. Tulsi fondly recalls how KVN once introduced him to the sage of Kanchi, proudly declaring that the young man was a vegetarian who shunned leather.

He also recalled how KVN enjoyed watching films like Maya Bazaar and Nandanar Charitram at Kapali or Eros cinemas, or during his Berkeley California days watching a kung fu tv serial up to the point sometimes of almost being late for the weekly concerts at the Center for World Music, fortunately only a few yards from the flat. He also remembers with gratitude how KVN and Padma looked after him spending their own money when he was seriously ill and again when he met with an accident. Tulsi never made it as a concert musician, but he could laugh at himself. 

When I once asked him about his progress in music, he said: “I must be improving. People ask me to stop singing these days. Earlier they would ask me to stop making noise.”

After the book I edited was done, I made an anxious phone call to KVN inquiring about it, as he had not called to comment on the just published book. Reassuring me, he said, “Bookkai aaraakkum undaakkiyathu? Ramanarayanan allavo?!” (Who produced the book? Was it not Ramanarayanan?)

It was typically kind of him; I had myself not been satisfied with the outcome of the project. He was perhaps making allowances for something the two of us shared: Ramanarayanan had been his given name at birth!

In conclusion, I’d like to say that KVN has left a unique legacy of music rooted in bhava, technically perfect but never designed to show off technical prowess, a model for present and future practitioners to adopt for its total adherence to sruti suddham. Equally important is to remember that KVN’s pure music came from his pure heart and good nature, as Sruti Pattabhi Raman said.

Guruguhamarta tribute to RK Srikantan

When I was young, I had the great good fortune of growing up in a large complex of three bungalows that straddled two major streets in the Alwarpet-Teynampet area, Murrays Gate Road, and Eldams Road. There were no compound walls separating the three houses, and the result was a vast, tree-shaded play area for all of us kids, a dozen or so cousins occupying those houses. Two granduncles, both sportsmen in their youth, were our match referees and adjudicators. The older of them, Venkata Mama, was by then semi-retired, and a sage presence in the midst of some of our frenetic games ranging from cricket and I Spy to carrom and Monopoly. We took all our disputes to him, all our interpretations of the laws governing our games. His word was always final, delivered firmly but with affection and kindness.

Vidwan RK Srikantan always reminded me of Venkata Mama, not in his physical appearance, but in his largely involuntary role of elder statesman among Carnatic musicians. If he had been a Chennaivasi, we would have heard his voice—not his singing voice but his views and perspectives on the great art he represents--more often than we actually did.

We all know he held strong views on tradition in Carnatic music—on voice training and sruti and laya suddham; we know his repect for the great vaggeyakaras and vidwans of the past. Sruti magazine, and I as a rasika, have been great fans of his music for the grandeur he brought to it—for his vast repertoire, his sense of balance in manodharma and most of all for his wonderful voice, his fidelity to sruti.

The many stalwarts present here today have a much better understanding of Carnatic music, far greater exposure to it, but I’ll rush in where angels fear to tread, and state that there has rarely been a greater male voice in Carnatic music than Sangita Kalanidhi RK Srikantan’s.

But Srikantan, like MS Subbulakshmi, was more than a great voice.

Someone- his son Ramakanth I think—once said Srikantan was a late bloomer. That one attribute of his straightaway endeared him to me, because I too belong to such a tribe, though my friends believe that I am a never-bloomer. BVK Sastry writing in Sruti November 1995, actually described his early singing as robust and impulsive. “Virtuosity seemed to overshadow artistic sensibility in expression.”  He pointed out this and other shortcomings which he said were “counterbalanced by his resonant, ringing voice, which invested his singing with a dynamic quality and which seemed to overwhelm the audience.”

Those of us who never heard the young Srikantan will find it hard to believe that his music did go through such a phase. In the same article, however, Sastry acknowledged the transformation in Srikantan’s music, beginning with the first noticeable changes in his mid-thirties, after he had internalized the music of great masters like Maharajapuram, Musiri, Semmangudi and GNB.

Sastry claims that Srikantan imitated GNB’s brigas for a while, adding his own touches, and gradually evolved his own style.  He noticed deep introspection, greater control and thoughtful planning in his concerts. He marvelled at Srikantan’s infinite capacity to surprise and delight audiences by singing different compositions in the same raga by different composers, in different concerts, even as the listeners expected the repeat of some song he had dealt with expansively in an earlier concert. This became a striking aspect of Srikantan’s music through the decades thanks to his enormous repertoire across genres and vaggeyakaras. Yet keen listeners could often guess the kriti correctly during his alapana because of his uncanny anchoring of it in the kriti without ever singing identical phrases.

The Sruti article came in 1995 to commemorate Srikantan’s 75^th birthday, and Sastry concluded by saying, “his voice has not lost either its resonance or its ring. Thus the ragas sound full-blooded. They are handled now with greater involvement and feeling. The swaraprastara too has undergone a change. There is more spontaneity than deliberate designing, though he occasionally yields to the temptation of mathematical permutations.”

Srikantan only got better and better in all these respects, so that in his nineties, he was in full possession of his faculties physical, intellectual and musical. About the mathematical permutations, there was never any need to complain, as his arithmetic had its own beauty; never lost its umbilical connection to the ragas he was painting.

Returning to the theme of Srikantan as the archetypal guru and de facto oracle, Sruti was fortunate to hear some of his views and thoughts on matters relating to the teaching of music.  I ‘ll try to list some of these here.

An aspiring vocalist must sing naturally and without effort in a rich and flexible voice. He must be bold and creative as a performer. He must be free from bad habits. He should not be hasty and overenthusiastic to appear on the cutcheri platform.

The teacher should ask the student to listen to the sruti or the key note for a while and then sing sa-pa-sa. 

The guru may hum two different notes and ask the student to identify the note that is higher in pitch. 

He may sing some notes in one sruti and ask the pupil to repeat the same notes in a different sruti. 

He may test the student similarly with a tambura not quite in tune, asking him which of the two strings is higher in pitch. He must train the better students to tune the tambura and other string instruments.

Similarly, he gives several examples of training in laya, stressing the value of the age-old practice of singing at least three speeds as a learner.  He cites varnam singing in three speeds as good training. One of the exercises he conducted with students included the guru singing simple melodies and asking the student to guess the talas.

I found Srikantan’s methods of voice training most attractive. In an interview to Sruti, he said a mellifluous, clear and pleasant voice was a gift of God. It is a delicate organ, easily injured by wrong use.

He gives hope to those not blessed with melodious voices, by assuring them that they can train theirs into musical voices. Here he highlights the benefits of yoga and pranayama, as well as higher and lower octave swara exercises. 

Resonant humming is another method of training he recommends. Most important, all the voice training exercises should be practised in four tempos.

An important disclaimer Srikantan puts forth is the distinction he makes between loud singing by forcing the voice and a clear, ringing voice that is the product of good training.

Here, I will quote him verbatim: “A rich, full tone is to be aimed at rather than mere loud singing. Proper management of the voice is the very soul of good singing, or for that matter speaking, also.

Last but not least, he says, “The possession of a good ear is an essential requisite.”

Happily for a listener like me, Srikantan emphasizes lakshya gnana, even more than lakshana gnana, as well as good taste and aptitude for music. “Too much of theory orientation destroys the aesthetic side of the performer, he says.”

Srikantan was an opponent of distance learning.  He was against crash courses. According to him, an enduring student-teacher relationship is the key to true learning.

In his speeches and lec-dems, Srikantan expressed his views fearlessly, but with a gentle touch, despite his stentorian speaking voice. At an interaction organized by Sampradaya, he criticized TM Krishna for singing a varnam as the main piece of a concert. Krishna who was the organizer of the event smilingly quipped, “Let’s discuss this in private later?” I would have been delighted to be a fly on the wall when that discussion took place. Just like my own Venkata Mama, I’m sure Srikantan would have been gentle and affectionate but firm in his pronouncement in the matter.

The most fitting tribute to this extraordinary musician would be for musicians to follow his sterling guidelines and emulate his values, without of course, sacrificing originality. Let’s not forget that he was a self-made musician away from Carnatic music’s headquarters, and he was an innovator as well, for all his respect for tradition.

The artist's responsibility

We often lament the absence of young listeners at our classical music concerts. The late Gangubai Hangal once said that Carnatic music could boast an impressive number of young musicians performing for a considerably older audience, while the reverse was true of Hindustani music.

It is true that many of the leading performers in Carnatic music are below 50, something that may not be equally true of Hindustani musicians. This state of affairs is sometimes claimed to be proof of the health of the future of Carnatic music. True, there is a tremendous amount of interest the world over in Carnatic music, and young people of Indian origin are flocking the many online gurukulas and other teaching environments.

The profusion of literature, notated texts, lecture-demonstrations, websites, mobile apps and other means of broadcasting and teaching classical or art music is no doubt an indicator of its ever expanding availability to millions of enthusiasts. Two major books on Carnatic music—The Incurable Romantic, the Lalgudi Jayaraman biography by Lakshmi Devnath and A Southern Music, TM Krishna’s magnum opus on the art—have added a new dimension to the burgeoning new literature in the field. These together with The Devadasi and the Saint by Sriram V a few years ago have been serious attempts at adopting a modern, western approach to recording recent history—of a kind not often seen in this part of the world.

The fact remains, however, that art music concerts continue to be largely attended by senior citizens, except during the December season. At Sruti’s recent event to launch the magazine’s mobile app, chief guest Rajiv Menon, an urbane filmmaker with a keen interest in art music, welcomed the emergence of serious musical talent from the Indian diaspora, while tracing the changing geography of our musical wealth which has travelled from the Tanjavur belt to the west via Madras over the last century or so.  He also stressed the ever changing economic dynamics of the music profession, increasingly confined to earnings from live events after piracy has made incomes from recorded music a doubtful proposition.

In such a scenario, with corporate sponsorship and free admission to cutcheris replacing royal and zamindari patronage of yore, ticket sales for concerts have become rarer than the most apoorva of our ragas.

The exceptions to these depressing examples are special concerts involving fusion and experimental genres of music, which are marketed professionally, and staged to raise funds for charities. Unfortunately, such programmes are often of dubious quality and rarely well rehearsed, polished team efforts. Along with wedding concerts and corporate shows, these events provide artists with much needed financial security.

The most serious side-effect of the trend is the inevitable thinning of the line between orthodox and experimental art. With very young musicians regularly taking part in so-called ‘world music’ and fusion concerts, the danger of their art being rocked at the foundation is very real. With the recent passing away of many a veteran musician, the responsibility of preserving the core characteristics of Carnatic music is now squarely on the shoulders of today’s reigning stars. The alternative would be akin to the imminent takeover of cricket by Twenty-20 at the expense of Test cricket. 

Welcome speech at launch of Sruti App on 15 March

Ladies & Gentlemen,

Namaskaram.

Sruti has always been steeped in tradition, but it has never shied away from technology. We use contemporary tools to analyse our ancient arts. Sruti’s very first issue way back in October 1983 had the archetypal traditionalist DK Pattammal and boy wonder Mandolin U Srinivas on its cover. It was still in its early years when it switched from physical cutting and pasting to desktop publishing solutions. The Sruti website was launched as early as 1998, by the venerable doyen of Carnatic music, Semmangudi Srinivasier, another happy juxtaposition of tradition and modernity. When the magazine introduced colour in late 2006, some of our friends were critical of the move. One of them said, “I don’t like the new Sruti. It has too much colour. “It was in some ways the expression of a valid fear that we would in the process forsake some of our aesthetic values. Happily, we have by trial and error largely avoided the trap.

The Sruti App will soon be launched and I shall not dwell on it, except to say that the young dancers who follow me will perhaps appreciate the App much better than most of us belonging to an older generation. The young man who is about to enthrall you is a veritable genius equally comfortable with a traditional art rooted in our soil and modern technology.

The gentleman who is set to launch the app is someone who is well versed in the state-of-the-art in technology as well as the classical arts. Rajiv Menon is original in his thinking, brilliant in his creativity and crystal-clear in his articulation. 

Like Sruti, Gowri Ramnarayan, one of its founder editors, straddles the fields of music, dance, literature and theatre with consummate ease. So do the other members of her team this evening, the artists Mythili Prakash—a talented American-born Indian bharatanatyam dancer—and vocalist Amritha Murali—also an accomplished violinist who has a master’s degree in finance management—and the technical team of Venkatesh Krishnan, a sensitive lighting specialist respected by all theatrepersons, scholar-actor-writer-artist Akhila Ramnarayan and the gifted and versatile Sheejith Krishna, dancer, choreographer, conductor, and percussionist.

On behalf of Sruti, I welcome our generous sponsors and all our distinguished guests to this evening’s programme. It also gives me great pleasure to welcome you all. Where but at Kalakshetra founded by that ultimate traditionalist and fearless innovator Rukmini Devi Arundale can we find such a perfect ambience for the proceedings of this evening?

A voyage of self-discovery

A profile of Malavika Sarukkai

By V Ramnarayan

She took the dance world by storm in the 1980s. Even novitiate rasikas of dance were ‘blown away’(to use a contemporary expression),  by her dazzling footwork and the purity of her lines. She came as a breath of fresh air into a phase in the development of the Bharata Natyam performance space when aging divas were beginning to exploit their superior abhinaya strength to counter the challenge of slowing limbs.

Already a decade or more into her dancing career after her debut at the age of 12, Malavika Sarukkai was at the time perhaps the most brilliant pupil of her gurus Kalyanasundaram Pillai of the Tanjavur school and SK Rajaratnam Pillai of the Vazhuvoor school of Bharatanatyam, impressing the critic and the commoner alike. She had also been studying the nuances of abhinaya from Kalanidhi Narayanan for some years by then.

Yet even as she electrified audiences with the power and precision of her nritta, Malavika was not yet known for abhinaya excellence. She tended to wear a uniformly intense expression. Her years of hard work had made her a breathtaking performer of aesthetic excellence, but she had perhaps not begun to ask the questions whose answers or the new questions they led to would propel her art into an altogether more philosophical, more emotional new trajectory.  It was a prolonged period of consistently high-voltage performances and enthusiastic audience approbation.

Like several of her peers or predecessors, however, Malavika eventually found herself at an inflection point in her life that demanded redefinition of the essential components of her stage performance. In her case, the moment of transformation perhaps arrived earlier than for most, as the rigour of her training and her intensity of purpose appeared to threaten to make her work one-dimensional.  She was at that stage of a dancer’s career, when she begins to probe deep within, study her art with a scholar’s intent, foray into the realm of composition and choreography. While her learning stint with Kalanidhi Narayanan should have invested her work with the emotive-romantic content it had hitherto been said to lack, life’s challenges and traumas including the break-up of her parents’ marriage may have led to the kind of introspection that guided her towards the path she has since pursued with utmost commitment. Her quest for deeper meanings, for a mystical sense of purpose, a quest in which she was devoutly mentored by Saroja Kamakshi, her mother and ever-present ally, led to a succession of thematic presentations. These have well and truly established Malavika Sarukkai as a dancer whose aesthetics have transcended the banis she was initiated into and acquired along the way, to a style she can call her own. Her wide-ranging interest in literature and the arts embraced music, serious cinema, painting, sculpture and architecture, and her ability to internalize her learnings from these diverse fields have found expression in successive new productions and influenced her world view.

When we try to trace Malavika’s artistic journey, we can see a pattern of three phases in it. In the first decade or so, she lit up the stage with her beauty, talent and energy, a period when she gave brilliant expression to the lessons she learnt at the feet of her gurus. Then perhaps came a time of apparent self-doubt and inquiry into the validity and continued relevance of her art in a rapidly changing world where all manner of stereotypes were being toppled. Her early experiments with choreography and conceptualization seemed to reflect the conflicts within, partly caused by personal turmoil. Burnished in the fire of the emerging neo-classicism of the period, when explicitness rather than understatement became the watchword on the dance stage, Malavika’s art started undergoing the final transformation into the stark elegance and powerful metaphors we see in her work today. The tremendous support, guidance and critiquing she received from her mother, best friend and critic in this last phase of her career probably fashioned her into the urbane, confident guru ready to pass on her legacy to dancers willing to go the distance.

Over the decades, Malavika, the performer and team leader, has earned a reputation for being a perfectionist with a propensity for thorough and numerous rehearsals before every performance. Her professionalism extends to courteous, caring treatment of her artists, and a refusal to attempt any shortcuts in preparation of her productions. According to V Srilakshmi, every rehearsal is equivalent to a perfect stage performance. “Giving her artists the freedom to improvise during the performance,” she is generous with appreciation when they meet or exceed her expectations.  Nandini Anand Sharma, a relative newcomer to Malavika’s troupe, says, “Singing for her is invigorating as she infuses her dance space with energy that automatically gets transferred to the accompanying artists.” 

Nattuvanar and mridangam exponent MS Sukhi says, “The coordination between music and dance is extraordinary in her presentations. Mala Akka knows exactly what she wants in music and rhythmic sequences. She knows how to get the best out of each musician working with her.” Srilatha is equally vocal in her praise. She says, “I have learnt from her what hard work brings to performance – the essence of the fine arts and harmony. To quote her, ‘To make something look effortless is the hardest thing to do’. 

In the words of Neela Sathya, “Malavika Akka is a master of presentation. Both she and her late mother had a great eye for detail, one of the main reasons for her flawlessly executed performances. Her devotion, humility and untiring efforts have made her what she is today.”

Great artists tend to be ‘lone rangers’, and some of the greatest of them have remained unattached all their lives or have had short-lived marriages. Malavika has been single but never alone, thanks to the unwavering rapport she shared with her mother, enjoying the best of two worlds, both her own space and the companionship of a partner.

She now begins yet another phase in her life. With her mother no longer around with wise counsel and candid criticism, she has to be her own critic and confidant, something she seems to be handling rather well.

And perhaps for the first time in her long and distinguished career, we see in her, flashes of humour and the ability to laugh at life and at herself. She is at that enviable crossroads, still physically fit enough to perform but also wise and mature enough to prepare the next generation of dancers for the journey ahead—in a world that is changing far more swiftly than Malavika’s was when she first came face to face with it. Their future would appear to be in good hands.

In dialogue with her dance

Malavika Sarukkai spoke to V Ramnarayan

Why are you still going on after 40 years of dancing?

It has been 41 years since my arangetram, and at least four years before that. Why does one dance still? There’s a certain sense of maturity, a sense of intensity one acquires in time. If you are engaging with your form, technique and all that, then you go on.

If I am still in dialogue with my medium, in conversation with my dance, as long as that is happening, I’ll dance. The moment I think I am not in dialogue, if it has dried out, then I’ll stop. That will be the time to say no more.

This is an awkward question. You lost your mother not long ago. I have seen people who were devoted to their partner, spouse, parent, blossom after the passing of that person they had been caring for. It is as if it were a release. Did that happen to you?

I really had to turn the page after my mother passed away. It was a transition point after I lost my partner. Ahead of me is a great deal of energy and excitement—to dance, to create, to choreograph. It’s coming back. After my mother’s illness, watching her go through it, I’m turning the corner. Dancing is therapeutic.

I was very fond of my mother; looking after her, spending time with her, meant a lot to me. But caregiving takes its toll; it is not easy. Even if you love your parents very much, want the best for them, it’s a physical, psychological strain. Dealing with the reality of ill health is tough. For many months I did not get over the shock of it. What I’m beginning to feel now is a lifestyle change, as if I can write a new chapter. Suddenly I have all the time to put whatever I want into this chapter. I can now completely devote myself to dance, to choreography, thinking, teaching, writing.

I miss her tremendously, miss having her sit by me while I am rehearsing. She was that somebody who’d comment, critique my work, talk to me about philosophy. There is a great absence. How I’m going to fill it, what I’m going to do is yet to be seen. I am finding myself.

At least physically, isn’t it difficult to go on at your age?

It is physically more demanding 41years after my debut, but I have kept myself fit by dancing. The longest break was after my mother passed away. I didn’t dance for four months. It’s now a time to rejuvenate.

There may come a time when you are not enjoying it any more?

I’m finding a new energy when I rehearse, when I’m practising. It’s astonishing. There’s the age factor. After all I’m 50. It’s also a question of temperament.  It’s a question of technique, the kind of training you’ve done. It is how positive you are. I think as long as I have my conversations with dance, at a very personal level, there is the energy. I still feel a sense of wonder. Today, we had this long rehearsal in the morning of the ras, something I have done so many times. Yet there was so much of wonderment, not just enjoyment, but living in the moment.

How have you evolved as a dancer over the decades?

There are so many stages. As a student you’re learning movement, space, body work. Then there’s the dancer stage, when it comes much easier. And then there’s choreography--you’re opening out, other things affect you, the world around you, and there’s a certain maturity. Then there’s the artist stage of a much deeper, more vertical thinking—into your dance form, into the language you’re working with. That’s when you’re able to contribute something. It’s not merely performative contribution. There’s a certain maturity and involvement, you’re having a conversation with dance. You ask yourself: How much are you personally engaging it? What does it mean to you to dance, to keep alive that sense of wonderment, the seeking?

How often can you achieve that?

In any art there are moments, some days when you touch a high. But sadhana, the whole thing of practice is to be so in tune with yourself that you are prepared, waiting to touch a high. Sadhana is preparation for it. If you are not prepared, if the yoga of body-mind does not happen, then you don’t get to that high.

When I train dancers, I say, “Where is your mind when you are dancing? What is happening to the mind?” It’s a different way of looking at dance. Engaging with the younger generation I do believe that the kind of training I want to impart, or what comes easily to me, how I speak about dance, is to tap their resources, not to imitate me.

Was there a time you imitated?

Yes, as a young dancer, yes. I used to see Yamini Krishnamurti, Lakshmi Viswanathan, all those padams, the way she did stars in the night sky. Things which Balamma (Balasaraswati) did sometimes, things which leave an imprint on you. Whether you’re imitating or not, somewhere it stays with you.  It is natural for all dancers. Then you move on with it. When you’re learning as a student, it is necessary to imitate, to get it right. Then you can be a little more open with it, and change perhaps.

How did you feel towards your guru? Is this complete guru bhakti a given or is there scope for thinking of your guru critically?

Perhaps the previous generation didn’t do it. Now dancers are certainly doing it. The whole guru-sishya situation is changing. The way I teach students is very different from the way I learnt from my guru. It is changing rapidly.

Are your education, where you are socially, your breeding and theoretical learning connected to your art, the factors determining this change? How is it different from the way your gurus taught you, saying this is the way, this is the sampradaya?

There was a certain fixed attitude the way Guru Kalyansundaram Pillai  or Guru SK Rajaratnam taught me. And I valued it. It was fine that they taught us, taught me like that. I appreciated that. At that time I needed someone to say “This is the way you must do it”. I was not asking questions, even of Kalanidhi Mami, when I was learning from her in the late 1970s.  She was on this real journey of discovery in dancing. We had the most unique kind of sessions, because she was herself growing and finding herself. It was so exciting. But yes, the teaching methods have changed; I can speak for myself. My mind is contemporary. My articulation is contemporary. The way I analyse my dance style is contemporary.

Also you have performed before varied audiences all over the world.

Again it goes back to cerebration. As a dancer I ask myself many questions, on technique, interpretation, movement. I ask myself, what is space today, what am I doing with the space, what do I want to do with the space? I guess it’s unique to each person: How do we create our style? What I am dancing is a very different style from what I learnt from Sri Rajaratnam or Kalanidhi Mami. I have shaped it differently.

How do you make sure that the changes you make or happen by themselves are still rooted in tradition?

It depends on how much you value tradition, the value, the abundance of tradition, how strong your foundation is. And also on how imaginative you are, and the risks you take. When you are very imaginative, you’re taking risks. You have to come up with the right vocabulary. It means tuning yourself to what is tradition, what is this bharatanatyam language. You need to be very alert, very critical of yourself, not believing everything you create is wonderful. You need a very critical mind, which says this works, this doesn’t. My mother played this very important role. She sat and looked at the rehearsal and said, this works, this works better, this doesn’t. But now I have to do it myself, so I need to be more alert to myself. It’s tougher. How does one learn to create something without crossing tradition or moving too far away and doing something else? It is just the love of tradition, passion, to say this is my tradition, I respect it for what it is.

You need to push boundaries with attention, a certain care and thoughtfulness.  The tradition is very precious. And I don’t want to throw it around, but rather gently unfold it. When I choreograph, whatever it is I choreograph, does it resonate? I want my art to create some kind of resonance. I don’t want it to be just performative, certainly not at this stage of my career.

You have a number of male followers, men who attend your lectures and ask intelligent questions. I think it is an unusual thing for men who are generally less informed about dance than about music.

Maybe my work is more cerebral and that engages them. There’s thought behind what I do. Women by and large are more emotional. Perhaps men don’t go so easily towards emotion. Because my work is both emotional and cerebral, it engages people of different types.

People are hesitant, inhibited, when they watch classical art. When an artist is able to get past the so-called barrier, our technique and our language are very eloquent, communicative, reflective, then it doesn’t matter. They all find something to appreciate. It is the quality of the dance itself, the ability of the artist to find it, find the quality that is so communicative. When I am training dancers, I tell them, don’t concentrate so much on the hasta as if it were the end-all of it. It’s just a highlight. You have a movement and a hasta at the end of it. Sometimes there’s so much preoccupation with the hastas that it turns into dumb charades. You can’t blame the dance for it.

What I’m saying in a nutshell has come through years of internalization. It’s deep within. That somehow affects the dance. There are no easy, quick steps.

How does it work in a world where you have to earn a living, make a career of it, be financially stable?

You have to have undying faith, undying passion.

Have you never lost hope, never doubted…?

I had my lows like all artists.  You go down, down. Against all those odds, through it all, one has to have faith, love dance itself, just dance, enjoy the moment, and dream.

Did you dream that you wanted to be the best dancer in the world?

Never.

To be rich and famous?

The rich part doesn’t come with dance.  I’d certainly like money, like all the comforts.  When I was in my 20s and 30s, we lived very frugally, my mother and I. We travelled 2^nd class by train, lived on a very tight budget. All we wanted was to have the grace of art in our lives. Both of us thought alike. I wanted to be known as a good dancer rather than popular.

Doesn’t fame matter?

I was driven by excellence, constantly raising the bar for myself. That is what pushed me in a direction. Coupled with that, I had a mother who never ever told me to make dance janaranjaka. She spoke to me about philosophy. She was always talking about the deeper aspects, other aspects that affect dance. She never said, make it entertaining and get popular. I never went in that direction. What has been reaffirming when I look back is that I could produce the work I wanted. I want to be celebrated as an artist. You don’t have to be popular to become famous, if you do serious work and are committed to your values. To be celebrated on the international circuit, that was really something.

Having been an artist people look up to, I don’t want to compromise on what I believe. That has been my biggest success. To be able to say I’ve been able to go in my direction and be famous, celebrated, and all the rest. This is what I want to tell younger dancers.

Would you call it an obsession, your involvement with dance?

Maybe, yes, it can sometimes get obsessive, but it is more a passion.

You must be a difficult person to live with then…

No, that is not true. I lived with my mother for many years. It worked very well. We were a very unique kind of mother-daughter.  It isn’t as if we didn’t have scraps, arguments. Every relationship has all that. But by and large, our train was the same. We were on track, stable.

How old were you at your arangetram?

12.

I don’t suppose you’ve had the kind of friendships that other children have?

No. just recently I went to my first film festival, at last. I went to MAMI in Mumbai. It was so exciting. I was seeing another aspect of living. I watched films non-stop for five days. I went to Irani restaurants with my friends, and we had bun-maska and chai and all that.  We walked around, went to the club to eat food. And it was lovely. I missed out so much on the normal things all those years because it was dance, dance, dance.

This question of dance being a spiritual quest and all that. How is it different from gymnastics or ballet? Is it because Bharata Natyam is based on our mythology, epics?

We call spirituality by different names.  A ballerina may call it ecstasy. We use the word spirituality to describe the body-mind sync.  The I, ahankara, is not predominant. When it gets displaced, when ahankara is not centrestage, you feel a moment of the spiritual. I’m training myself to be able to find these moments when I want to be displaced.  And that is a moment of sacrifice, when you’re willing to say that the I will be displaced. That moment is a delight. It is prayerful. It’s deep consciousness, tissue memory, body memory that goes all the way down. For me it’s that moment of delight, of spirituality.

It doesn’t matter what rasa you’re playing, sringara or bhakti or whatever?

It could happen in pure dance. Today when I was rehearsing I found a new energy in my dance room. We had no power, no fan. I was sweating it out, my musicians were sweating it out, but we were all carried away. It was not the angasuddham. I am talking beyond angasuddham, of energy in the body. Can a dancer, an artist evoke sattvik energy rather than rajasic? What we see in most concerts is rajasic energy.

Does that include energy from the audiences?

They play a part.

The spiritual quest has been a constant in your several efforts.

Yes.

I find that expression bandied about a lot. The self-forgetfulness you speak about doesn’t seem to happen a lot, at least in music, though on the day it does, it is fantastic. I suggest the reason that spirituality can be ascribed to art rather than say other activities like sport is perhaps that in art, in dance, at its best, you are not competing with anyone. There may be an occasion when a sportsperson is completely at one with his activity, but he is still trying to get someone out or defeat someone. The very nature of sport is competitive. Would you agree?

Yes, that seems a fair description, but so much depends on the temperament of the artist. It’s not as if music per se or dance per se is spiritual. Till you seek it, you wait for it, you are willing to prepare for it… if your objective in dance is something else, it doesn’t happen.

The popular interpretation of spirituality in dance is perhaps the textual content, in Rama and Krishna?

When I say spiritual, I’m not talking of gods and goddesses. I’m talking of moments. If I find it by doing the song of Krishna, fine, but I find it in pure dance. It’s just the harmony, the alignment of the body and mind coming together.

How do you define bhakti from the point of view of your art?

A few days ago, I was trying to edit my Andal production Maname Brindavaname.  I was working with my musicians. Everytime I felt that this bhakti was so different from the bhakti of the nayanmar.

Speaking of Andal, how do you equate eroticism with bhakti?

That is such a big question. It takes years of sifting through what you feel, to be able to put sringara and bhakti together. It is very difficult. When we say sringarabhakti, there’s more surrender. It’s a question I have pondered a lot. When I read Andal, I see the bhakti in the lyrics in a way I can’t in a Kshetrayya padam.

Reading AK Ramanujan has affected me a lot. When I read When God is a customer, whose poetry ranges from Annamacharya, to Kshetrayya to Sarangapani, I realise that some poetry is filled with bhakti, while some poetry is pretending bhakti. As an artist you have to plumb deep.

Speaking of Andal, Rukmini Devi’s Andal would be so different from my portrayal or one by Mythili Prakash. We are talking of the essence of Andal, not Andal, the person. I sometimes wonder while doing a description of Krishna, I wonder if I know what he looks alike, and then realise that I don’t know. What we are actually getting to is the essence.

What does the metaphor of Krishna mean to you?

Sometimes it is just a moment, the essence of Krishna. I think sringara bhakti as an emotion takes a long time to intermingle sringara and bhakti. To do it separately is much easier. As a dancer matures and starts asking questions, she is more comfortable with sringara. Because you have done so many padams, you have a vocabulary, and you can do bhakti separately. But when the two have to intermingle, it is a very fine nuance. It took me years to be able to locate it, and be comfortable with it. When I became comfortable with it, I started asking questions. At which point does sringara bhakti actually manifest itself? There are many points of supposedly sringara bhakti, and I asked, "Where is this sringara bhakti?" because I had certain associations with sringara bhakti. It took me years to feel comfortable with that emotion, that state of mind. What you are suggesting in say a Radha is a state of mind. I have taken my time understanding the emotion of sringara bhakti.

When do you think the understanding came about in dance that this is sringara bhakti, not just sringara? When did people start interpreting the higher purpose?

I think it really represents the temperament of the artist. It’s also the artist’s own evolution what the artist is thinking. You could ask, "Why is it a person like Balamma could touch it so easily?" Another person of her background or age group might not have found it. I think it is an individual finding it in each case.

And it doesn’t have to be found by all artists. Some artists may actually be more comfortable with sringara. I think it depends on your style, your temperament.

What did Rukmini Devi do that people found so objectionable as the sanitizing, brahminising of sringara?

I know there’s been such a discourse, and cross-talk about it. I think she did what she felt she had to do at that point of time. Did it have relevance at that time, did it make a statement, did it have a lasting power? It did, whereas when I trained with Kalanidhi Mami, it was so different.

What you are doing now in dance is different from what you learnt from Kalanidhi Narayanan, isn’t it?

Yes, it’s very different. Mami was a contemporary of Rukmini Devi, but was into this whole world of padams and all that she had learnt from her gurus. I think Rukmini Devi's temperament made her take it in her way. She was a pathbreaker in many ways. She was defining the dance form. When you read the tempestuous conversations between E Krishna Iyer and Muthulakshmi Reddy, there was a great confrontation. It’s all history for us. We don’t know the actual tension of it, which this film Unseen Sequence on me does touch upon.

Have you personally felt awkward portraying eroticism?

I think eroticism is really such a state of mind. Your state of mind dictates the moment. It moulds the moment differently. In my own example, I’ve done a lot of sringara, where I am taking my dance to sensuality, not eroticism. There’s a great amount of sensuality to the body that we can bring out. Why not celebrate the body? Celebrate it, but sensually. If I am thinking erotic and I want to seduce the person in the first row, then I am going to look very different.

When the lyric is explicit, how do you deal with it?

There’s a question of choice, deliberate choice. Many many years ago I was in this world of sringara and love and emotions, and I said I want to do something different in sringara. Most of the pieces we do are all about viraha, about wanting but never being there. I said, I want to do the moment of sringara. So what do I do? I said, pure dance. I stylize it, take it through the pathway of pure dance, suggesting coming together, suggesting passion, masculine-feminine, ecstasy, even burning desire.  Do I want to take sahitya that says this, this and that? I said, no. I don’t want sahitya at all. I’m going to explore with movement, I said. I use the body’s design of sringara as a unit, and rhythm. You can do a lot of things with rhythm for sringara. The first time I did it, people went, wow how did you think of it? I said I’m just exploring what I have and I am using my alphabet differently. I could suggest passion, sensuality, and ecstasy all through pure dance, which gives the audience the sense of sambhoga without making it erotic. Because it is the way I think. It is there to discover, to find. What do you want to do with it? When I did Khajuraho in Sacred and 

Secular, there was obviously so much sensuality. But when one is doing sensuality one has to be very alert to oneself. And make sure that one is on that fine line of the sensuous, not succumbing to easier, more popular notions of sringara. You need the discipline of the body and mind to say I’m here and I’m not going to move.

We have to keep at it. After years I find that the mind has to have a very fine rigour, whether it’s in interpretation, in editing something that one has done, or technique. We stay on course, so that we actually do something meaningful.

Is it the purpose of art to uplift?

Classical art at the very core gives you and the audience those moments of flight which are so precious and are so honourable. You have to be alert and waiting for it.

http://epaper.dnaindia.com/story.aspx?id=49355&boxid=16796&ed_date=2013-7-27&ed_code=820009&ed_page=18

Modified from an earlier blogpost
http://epaper.dnaindia.com/story.aspx?id=49355&boxid=16796&ed_date=2013-7-27&ed_code=820009&ed_page=18