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An Insight into the Writing of Mistress
REFLECTIONS
When one dances with the gods
ANITA NAIR
"WHY are you doing this?" I was to ask
myself this question several times over the next four years...
I was lying on my side on two sheets of newspaper spread on the cement
floor. Alongside me was a little lunch box in which I had brought two
slices of French toast and a banana. The leaves rustled tirelessly and
for the rest, a silence wreathed the kalari.
Far above me from the rafters, a spider spun its web glad for the reprieve
of a few hours when neither the thundering feet of young males nor the
beat of the chenda would make it falter in its tracks.
From the corner of my eye, I saw a chameleon enter the classroom. It was
a large specimen with a little frill around its neck. I sat up. The chameleon
nodded as if to ask: What?
I shook my head. Nothing, I said.
It stared at me and I stared back.
For a moment, I wondered when the book was written, if I should call it
Chameleon. I didn't need to extend myself very far to see the aptness
of the simile; the frill could be the white chuti that frames the Kathakali
dancer's face and the changing colours akin to the dancer's colours.
Tutelage of art
But in this task I had set myself, the first dharma decreed that I go
beyond where I could with minimum effort...
In the theory class, aashan Gopalakrishnan watched a final year student
enact a scene from "Subhadraharanam". "You need to do better,"
aashan grunted. "Anyone can do this; what is going to make your artistry
memorable is how far you extend yourself."
I realised then that it wasn't just Kathakali that I was making acquaintance
with. This was the tutelage of art.
In the days to follow many such gems came my way. Technique is the mastery
of rhythm, aashan would say. You need to have total control of what you
are doing to make a hash of your steps without missing a beat, he said,
demonstrating as much.
Do not mistake competence for brilliance. Absorb first, question later.
Each day I would walk into the kalari with a group of students almost
half my age with a sense of mounting excitement....
But soon it was time to begin my questions. Sometimes I wondered if I
was tiring him with my relentless probing. In my mind I saw another creature
from the animal world. The vulture pecking between the bones. I hurled
the thought away and told myself that the second dharma decreed that you
put your art
first. In this case, my need to understand Kathakali to be able to write
about it.
Nothing else would justify what I was demanding of others: That my mother
who has lived out her karmic cycle of motherhood is forced to return to
it To rise early and cook me breakfast and plant interesting morsels in
my lunch box so I don't toss it away. A father who switched on the early
morning news to keep tabs on lightning strikes and bandhs and heated the
water for my early morning bath. A ten-year-old child who had to put up
with his mother's absence. A husband who was told to cope. A taxi driver
who regulated his trips for two whole months so he could chauffeur me
to the institute and on my midnight forays as I played Kathakali groupie
and sought out performances... I was asking a great deal of others for
a personal whim and yet that too was the dharma of art. That it has to
be all or nothing....
Grand obsession
What in the beginning was a great love for the Kathakali
padam was becoming a grand obsession. From merely wanting to know how
these padams were set within the context of the story, Kathakali itself
was beginning to consume. And yet, it would have rested there if one morning,
about four and a half years ago, I hadn't walked into work to see a Kathakali
dancer in full costume in the reception area.
Bundled up in a Tata Sumo, he was being taken from one ad agency to the
other as a living rate card... I didn't know how the dancer was received
in the other agencies but in the one I worked in those days, there were
sniggers and giggles... he was an object of ridicule more than anything
else and my heart
went out to him... I probably felt more wretched than him. He was playing
a role after all.
The irony being that a Kathakali performer has so very few opportunities
to don his colours will accept anything that comes his way. Be it standing
as prop for a detergent or playing the fool for a candy advertisement
or being a walking gesticulating rate card....
This trivialising all that is sacred about art, how could I remain immune
to it? How could I not address it? I wasn't to know it then. But the third
dharma of art has just brushed my soul. What you do may mean nothing to
the world. What matters is that it means everything to you.
In the world of Kathakali, it is said you need 100 hours of practice before
you can perform for a minute; I would need at least 100 hours of study
to be able to write a page on Kathakali. And where was I to begin?
Generous teacher
In Kerala, we make much of a word called nimitham. The dictionary defines
this as reason, cause, indication and omen.... in many ways all of these
compounded to lead me to the Kerala Kalamandalam and to aashan Gopalakrishnan.
At any other time, it may have been another guru I was assigned to. At
that point, he was the only one available and perhaps it was the nimitham
that found me an aashan who would sculpt forever my understanding of art.
With a generosity that was as overwhelming as humbling, he held nothing
back. All of which he knew he made available for me to draw from: Of the
man. Of the dancer. Of the student. Of the performer. And some where in
between all these, he laid bare the makings of an artist.
I was surrounded by young men who by day had their personalities so submerged
by the dictates of the art form that at night when they transformed into
magnificent creatures, gods, or demons, they were that completely. The
moment you allowed yourself to emerge, the character regressed. And so
I learnt the
fourth and final dharma. In the world of art, there is no first person.
It is the artistry and not the artist who is significant. It is the creation
that dazzles and not the creator.
Under aashan's guidance, from a passive onlooker, I became a very involved
and cue-ed in observer. I read all the texts I could find, attended classes
to see how the students are taught, had lessons myself both theory and
practical to know what it entailed, attended all the performances I could,
listened to all
the Kathakali padams that were recorded, asked countless questions (knowing
very well how foolish it sounded at times) of everyone associated from
teachers, students, musicians and green room assistants... visited homes
of artists, and students, gleaned anecdotes from anyone willing to talk,
and
probed for more and more minutiae...
Moments of self-doubt
I was so completely wrapped up and in spirit, if
not in body, I had donned the colours of a Kathakali artist. There was
no other option really... so much so when I heard a rattling lid on top
of a pot of boiling water, instead of turning the gas off, my mind searched
for the thalam — was it chempa or chempada?
And yet, there would come an occasional moment of self-doubt. Why am I
doing this?
To stay resolute in what I was doing, I had to convince myself that I
may not have the answers for it now but eventually it would all fall into
place.
When the apsaras emerged from the cosmic ocean "with all gifts of
grace, of youth and beauty.... neither god nor demon sought their wedded
love". Why is it that we alone must remain "common treasure
of the host of heaven"? Why is it that we cannot live our lives bound
by the dictates of samsara? Couldn't our joys and triumphs, sorrows and
failures be the mortal kind? The apsaras were to ask this of themselves
again and again. The apsaras were condemned to an eternity of not knowing
why.
Perhaps that is the curse they wish upon their kin — all hand
maidens and pageboys of art. That you continue to serve not knowing why....
But there is a hidden blessing too that is yours to discover: In the end,
you will realise for yourself what was important was for a few moments
you knew a perfect sense of oneness with the world and all that around
you. In that perfect moment, you are dancing with the gods rather than
for the gods. The rest then will be of no consequence.
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