Kartikey Sehgal

I had reviewed the ‘20th Pandit Durgalal Festival’ for the magazine ‘Nartanam’. Here are some photographs from the event.

 
The event is presented annually by danseuse Uma Dogra to commemorate the memory of Durgalal, her dance guru. Uma is the founder and Managing Director of ‘Sam Ved Society for Performing Arts’.

 
The three day festival began with a performance of light ghazals by Jagjit Singh. There was much demand for some of his popular ghazals but they served no purpose to the ideology of the festival.

 
Sarodist Gurudev Singh played in raag Charukeshi despite an injury to his shoulder. When he couldn’t continue he asked his disciple to take his place.
 
Teacher and Disciple

 
Ranjana Gauhar’s Odissi performance; every performance was preceded by a short story about the contents of the dance.

 
Kathak dancer Uma Dogra presented a self composed thumri set in thirteen beats. She spoke of and praised her disciples for continuing the tradition of classical dance.

 
The accompanying vocalists and instrumentalists were honoured for their contribution to the dances.

 
An audience member told me that Deepak Mazumdar’s Bharatnatyam performance was controlled and balanced and unlike the styles popularised in films.

The final performance of the festival was a rendition of ‘Sufi Kathak’ by Rani Khanam. The danseuse performed her dance over urdu poetry.
 

The venue for the first day was Nehru Centre, Worli. The venue for the second and third day was the open air theatre at Bhavans, Andheri.

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Kartikey Sehgal

(The author attends Krishna Janmashtami Celebrations)

The hostess introduced the dancers and said that it is important to teach dance to young Indian girls. “Indian Classical Dance instills discipline into women. It is important for Indian culture.”

She also spoke about the Bollywood impact on children; implying that we need to move beyond recognising film dance as a substitute for traditional dance.
We saw a classical dance on a song from Lagaan, “Radha Kaise na Jale”; another one on “Kahe Chede Mohe” from Devdas. A young girl danced to ‘Chomaso’, a Rajasthani folk song that I often hum.

All this to celebrate the birthday of Krishna. Surely, birthdays are reasons to celebrate talent and human vitality.

The image of Krishna was placed alongside the image of Goddess Durga. She is important, the hostess agreed with me. Then she showed me her lucky charm, a Durga mala. She speaks the English language, she is a dance teacher, and she likes her Indian philosophy. Would you call her superstitious?
We also talked of the importance of the female form in Indian culture. And how ‘modern’ ‘educated’ people, who are still wearing the colonial fragrance, like to complain about superstitions.

The hostess was the commander-in-chief of the celebrations. She welcomed the guest and made sure they take the prasadam, a cup of delicious home-made lassi, served by the cheerful kitchen-workers.
A woman organising festivities is not a new concept in India. But we (I) come across complainers who know almost nothing of the country but are adept at pointing out cultural mistakes. 

The Decorations.


The Gods.

Dressed to Perform

The hostess introduces the young dancers.

An Aside:
Close to midnight, a husband asks his wife…What is going on?
The wife says… As usual, you don’t know what’s going on… a secret of our long married life.

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Kartikey Sehgal

[Fiction]

I dance to Tango. Only, I don’t know what it is. I had seen it once, in some movie. They raise their skirts, maybe they do. But that’s not the reason I liked Tango. The song had a bitter-sweet quality; like you celebrate the birth of a baby while reminiscing about your lover’s death. While the heart sings for the baby, the mind wishes the olden moments of love.

The dance watchers—who don’t dance—clap for the dancers. Then they are inadvertently drawn into the dance. They don’t actually dance; move their feet. But dance is participation. I imagine, while a red hot—meaning very pretty—Spanish girl dances, her Spanish lover, with or without that beard stares into her. The lady then dances to tease him, to show him that she doesn’t really care for his staring at her. The man, then, is also a dancer. He is partaking the Tango flavour of the lady.

Now an old man, who was just moving his legs, coughs, and sits on a chair. A young dancing girl pats his back and presents to him a glass of water. This is not breaking the dance. It is maybe taking a break from dance.

Life is a dance, then. In our sorrows and miseries, we don’t break away from her, we take a break from her. Then we see through a window, see the dancing children and ladies, and remember to dance again. Tango or not.

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