How Bharatanatyam came to flourish in Delhi

When and how did a form like Bharatanatyam (BN for brevity) come to the north or the rest of India, 2,000 km away from Thanjavur? 150 years ago, via the prime minister's discarded Lok Sabha constituency, Vadodara. It so happened that the Baroda under the Gaekwads found no suitable bride for their prince. In the Hindu context, it reads: the horoscopes didn't match!

Emissaries were sent far and wide to find a prospect. She was found in the person of princess Chimnabai of Thanjavur! As part of her royal entourage (and dowry) two Bharatnatyam Devadasi girls, Gowri and Kanti were sent to Vadodara. That was the year 1888. The rest is history.

In 1949, after Independence, the maharaja chose to donate all his palaces to the public. He deemed that universities of excellence be set up in these structures spread all over the royal city of Baroda. One such palace became India's first music and dance teaching college - the Maharaja Sayajirao University (popularly called the MSU). Another palace became the fine arts department(the Baroda school of painting links to founder teachers like NS Bendre, and the dance department to Mohan Khokar).

The course they set up way back in 1950s is still in use.

Khokar hailed from a Sikh military family of the Punjab and was mesmerised by visiting icons of dance, like Ram Gopal and Uday Shankar. Do not forget that Lahore, before Partition, was the Paris of the East - its cultural capital. Delhi was but a little village. Upon seeing Ram Gopal, Mohan Khokar went to Madras' cultural vein Kalakshetra in 1945, as the first male student from North India.

He never returned home because there was no home left to return to. Lahore was gifted to Pakistan by the cunning British, who divided the the subcontinent on a map.

Mohan Khokar had initially also taken classic dance lessons in Lahore from the iconic Zohra Sehgal. Today, his mammoth dance collection is India's largest.From Baroda, BN made inroads into north India. A dance form with an alien language amalgamated into popular culture in the north. And some 50 years later, in 2016, there are more people learning BN than any other form in all of India, including the north.

This happened as Delhi was the centre of government patronage and many leading artistes and gurus - like Swarna Saraswati, Venkata, Govindrajan Nattunars and star dancers Indrani Rahman, MK Saroja, Yamini Krishnamurti, Sonal Mansingh, followed by another generation of artists, including Leela Samson and Jaya Lakshmi - made the capital their home in the '50s and '60s. Even Pandanallur-style exponent Alarmel Valli had a house here.

Today, the mantle of teaching and spreading the form rests with the third generation of dancers, like Geeta Chandran and Rama Vaidyanathan. Both continue to reach out nationally and internationally from their base in Delhi.

Fastrack to 2016.

Geeta Chandran's school Natyavriksha is 25 years old - along with dance, it teaches aesthetics, art, craft , costume sense, and even media and political outreach. All this would fall flat if it was not backed by hard work, competence and content. And over the past 25 years, Geeta with her full-time impresario husband Rajiv, has created a benchmark place for Bharatanatyam in Delhi. Actually, they are the only BN couple of the capital.

Take an obscure or lesser known theme - Anekanta, which translates to several truths or endings, from the Jaina philosophy, mix it with enthralling music, and add designer costumes. A group of enthusiastic students. A pinch of punch in the form of supremely-crafted stage prop and you have a benchmark BN work.

Geeta's work is a cross between Chandralekha and Leela Samson, but in the end it is her's alone. Samson's dance through the decades and the group Spanda is clinical and cold, just as her art always has been - and Chandralekha has debunked tradition and forever been in-your-face, seeking attention in her last work, Sharira.

Geeta does neither. She is BN - body, mind and soul. When a dancer is comfortable with her form and material, in command with what she learnt and practised from true masters and not poseurs, then the outcome is clear and clean.

Sudhamahi Regunthan has written extensively on soft subjects like faith and philosophy. Of late, she has tried to comprehend the Jaina philosophy and culture. This silver jubilee work of Geeta's school, the Natyavriksha, is Sudhamahi Regunthan's literary gift.

Her latest offering reflects the above. It shows the process and protocols; the approach and attitude. Because she has also trained somewhat in classical music (under Meera Seshadri), Geeta understands structure.

Geeta is poised to grow make BN productions polished. Kalakshetra has had no new work come from its stable and mostly recycles existing pieces. Other BN dancers are researching on new themes like Malavika Sarukkai and schools in Bangalore, Baroda and Boston are churning out more of the same stuff one has seen in the past many decades.

Geeta, hence, is the midpoint in the evolution of BN in the last 100 years and represents a traditional form in a modern avatar.

Meanwhile, in Chennai, "An Offspring of Andal" is how Zakir Hussain described himself. A Ram Gopal look alike on stage, though shorter and chubbier, he is a dancer of quietude and depth. A Muslim doing Vishnu themes is a novelty and evokes much interest. What's better still is the utter lack of extra histrionics many in Madras suffer from, when on stage. Suttaman! Neat and clean.

"Panchkanya of Srirangam" was his thematic presentation on occasion of the saree chain Nalli's 75-year celebrations in Mylapore on Chhat Puja day. The Panchkanyas - Tara, Mandodri, Ahalya, Draupadi and Kunti - as a work, has been performed by many iconic kanyas of dance in past, but no male solo dancer has done it successfully.

Hussain started out well in the varnam format, but lost the plot to a solo ballet- type production in the end. Uday Shankar, the great, once told me when he came home for dinner: Edit, edit, edit! The art of being on stage should be such that the audience wants more of the form. Always leave them wanting more."

Few dancers today follow that.

However, north or south, one sees the outreach and impact of BN. It is truly a national dance symbol.