Wednesday 4 September 2019

A tale of two cities and more! - Dance Matters: Column by Ashish Mohan Khokar


August brought flood and fury - not just the real watery one but the metaphorical one too. The anger against the Sangeet Natak Akademi awards this year resonated in magazines, editorials (including in narthaki) and of course on the social media. Representations were made to Minister of Culture in Delhi and the Secretary Culture too. Let's hope something concrete comes of all this complaining. Let's also understand, in India, no awards list is infallible or final. There'd be always nazarbattus! Or the names on lists will have lacunae and loopholes. 

Should we scrap state awards altogether? Or put a stop for a few years? In the meantime, reassess and revitalise the process. According to me, the problem starts at the outset when a candidate's bio data is sought by those recommending him or her. As a national akademi, SNA should have the bio datas of all who matter, for the minute a person's bio data is sought the candidate starts canvassing.

Of course, these days most canvass, nay pester, earlier awardees to nominate them. Nomination should be secret. Those in the running should not even know. Simple. We Indians have found ways to beat the system to allow for corruption. In this simple case of awards processing, this can easily be rectified. All nominations must happen in complete secrecy. Period. Let SNA do some work and collect the resumes from state akademis or the zonal centres. What's the big deal? 

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3 comments:

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  2. Dear Aashish sir,
    You always write from your heart& a very simple manner that it reaches directly even to a lay person.i really liked that you spoke about Ratna Kumar ji who is also a Kuchipudi Dancer a senior desciple of Guru vempti Chinna sattyam.

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