Folk Traditions of Northeast India
By Biren Baruah and Suman SwaragiShubhi Publications479, Sector 14, Gurugram-122 001, Haryanae-mail: shubhipublications@yahoo.co.inISBN: 9788182903074Price Rs. 1495"The Seven Sisters" of the North-East India (comprising Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Meghalaya, Tripura, Mizoram and the large state of Assam), plus the native kingdom of Sikkim added in 1975- with their low-lying Khasi, Jaintia, Lushai, Garo and Naga Hills, and the sprawling Barrack and Brahmaputra Valleys - offer an undulating physical topography. This beauteous landscape offers a human settlement that dates back to the Austro-Asiatic languages, followed by Tibeto-Burmese population and then the Indo-Aryan speakers from the Gangetic plains, half a millennium before Christ.
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Life can change in a split second. Mine certainly did. I was studying Russian language and literature, preparing for a career in academia or international politics. But after seeing Birju Maharaj dance in 1963, I made an about-face. At that time he was called "Maharaj-ji" by all. The honorific "Pandit-ji" came later. Yet there was never a question in my mind, that whatever he was called, Maharaj-ji was a charismatic performer and compelling communicator, and I would study Kathak with him.Trained in Western flute and piano for thirteen years starting at age five, I had been entranced by the musicality of a few lines of poetry composed by the 19th century Russian writer Pushkin. The subject was love, of course. Ya vas lyubul... "I loved you and perhaps this love has not yet died..." The sound of the words, the musicality of a language whose verb and noun endings could create unforced rhymes, the still-living tradition of memorizing and reciting poetry as a natural extension of human speech - I loved it all.
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A time was when the joint family system in Indian society took care of the elders of the family, there being always some siblings who would take care of the aged parents. After the nuclear family emerged in the society's industrial and post-industrial phases, the children, after receiving childhood education, necessarily drifted apart from their parents to settle in the new places of employment, leaving the elders severely alone. In metropolises like Kolkata, there are innumerable cases where the children either earn their livelihood at faraway places like Bangalore or have moved abroad, giving rise to a severe social problem: that of urban loneliness.One solution to this malady has been a chain of usually ill-kept "old age homes" where the deserted parents would move to live in a brand new habitat, enlivened by generally rare social visits by the now estranged siblings at their own convenience. In cases where parents - normally with strong willpower - stuck to continue in their own homes, the siblings would not hesitate to milk them if they have any marginal utility left still. Alternatively, the new-age "promoters" would hover round them almost like vultures and attempt uprooting them, to grab the property for raising multi-storied structures. The ace director Sima Mukhopadhyay has looked at some of these vulnerable situations with great empathy and gifted the Kolkata viewers two 'clinical' studies done with an unerring scalpel.
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Come December and some of us from the Capital plan well in advance to move to Chennai for the 'season' now extending from December to January and at times further extending to February also. Of late, the main reasons are also to escape the Delhi winter with extreme cold and pollution. Chennai weather is far better than what we suffer at Delhi. And it also extends to February. The city is all abuzz with music and whatsApp is bombarded with announcements of several performances, enthusiastic dancers post videos and clog our cell phones. The incessant postings tire one's patience. Social media has become an easy tool for advertisement, though, in a way, it helps one to select in advance what one would like to see and attend!
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Anita Ratnam has called her work 'Naachiyar Next,' an amplification and reworked version of what she first presented in 2003 under Arangham Trust. Not having seen the earlier production, one can only comment on what was premiered as a changed version of the original, by a now more experienced choreographer, at the Krishna Gana Sabha, as elegant and refreshingly different from what one is normally treated to - amidst countless dance works woven round the theme of Nachiyar /Goda and Andal's Tiruppavai. As a strong voice of feminism over a thousand years old, Andal's appeal has not dimmed with time. Anita's lifelong fascination for Andal and what she represents has made her revisit for expression, the subject of her life and poetry over and over again- the latest being an hour and a quarter of enthralling dance theatre which communicates across regional and cultural frontiers
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Love one another but
Make not a bond of love
Let it rather be a moving sea
Between the shores
Of your souls- Kahlil Gibran, poetWelcome to a brand NEW YEAR and the start of a NEW DECADE !The last month of the year brought such a whirlwind of contrasting experiences that I am still breathless from the tsunami of visuals and sounds that have hit me for the past 31 days.From devout crowds at my ancestral temple, to an urban library where John Lennon met Andal; from being spellbound by a flute next to the ocean to eyes moistening as I watched a mother sing baby Krishna to sleep while narrating the Ramayana - this has been an overwhelming month for me.As patron, presenter, producer, performer, speaker, writer, host and single parent- all the while maintaining a calm demeanour - HAS NOT BEEN EASY.Amidst the chaos of daily protests and arrests across India due to the Citizenship Amendment Bill (CAB) a month of singing and dancing seemed at odds with the reality of our daily lives. But then the Chennai Margazhi season chugs on...And just in case you were thinking that ALL roads lead to Chennai in December, there is slight modification. Only certain parts of Chennai celebrate MARGAZHI. Go beyond Gemini Circle to areas like Nungambakkam and Kilpauk and you will be asked, "What is happening? What Season?"This online dance portal began at the dawn of the millennium and it is already in its 3rd decade!And how much our dance lives have changed!And the most evident indicator has been the recently concluded NATYA KALA CONFERENCE at Krishna Gana Sabha.
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