Rajee Narayan at SIES School in Matunga on Saturday. Ashish Shankar In the centre of a hall in a suburban school,little Anjali Pillai does a folk ballet and the composition is an original happy birthday rhyme. Pillai is very cautious as she knows the subject of the rhyme has an eye for details and is tough to please. Sitting in a chair,in rapt attention,is Rajee Narayan,who has just turned 79. She points to certain improvements,saying aloud some of the mental notes she makes. At her age,Narayan is the only Vaggeyakara,a storyteller who pens lyrics,chooses the ragas,composes the song,sets the dance steps to the raga and lyrics and then completes the routine by singing it while the dancer performs. Vaggeyakara is an extremely traditional south Indian dance form. Age has not mellowed Narayans commitment to teaching the purest form of Bharatnatyam. At the Nrithya Geethanjali class,running out of a school hall in Sions The South Indian Education Society for the last thirty years,a group of girls has gathered on the weekend to wish her on her birthday. A former student has come from Canada to meet her. They arrive well on time. She has never missed a class,not even in the worst of Mumbais waterlogging and does not stand those who are not punctual,say the guards. While the dance form might have a contemporary platform today,Narayan professes the art form as it was written centuries ago. Her focus is on perfecting the Nattuvangam (art of conducting a dance). She can bring in contemporary topics,though. Senior disciple Jaishree Rao (53) says,She can bring a certain grace to an often told religious story,but also weave in a beautiful story out of everyday events. Rao recalls a story she composed wherein she spent reading the Bhagwad Gita over a period of six months and another where she composed a song and set it into a dance where a mother tries in vain to convince her daughter against a boy of her choice. Its hardly surprising that the Nuclear Board of India approached Narayan for telling a story of an atom through a dance form. They wanted me to tell the story of the atom,and tell the world it is not just something with a destructive equation,but also something which gives life. Having started seven decades ago,in a cameo role in a Tamil film (she was given the role of Sant Eknaths daughter),Narayan went on to learn,practise and much later teach Bharatnatyam and south Indian folk dance. Among her best works is a self-designed project on folk compositions titled Rural Rhythm. There is a rhythm in every village act,collective or individual. Everyday chores have a certain musical identity,be it a cooking chore or workers pushing a log, calling out in synch. One will be surprised to note that even funerals had women composing a dirge for the final procession after eavesdropping on the goodness of the man through the mourners, she explains as she adds,I felt the need to bring it back for the new generation. Pinal Kotalam,a dance form where dancers weave a pattern with ropes and use mathematics to undo the long rope formation was brought back by Narayan when she introduced difficult weaves through Rural Rhythm. Today,with students across the globe actors Shilpa Shetty and Vidya Balan started off with her- Narayan is happy continuing to teach students who sometimes stay in Mumbai just to learn from her. At this age,this is satisfying, she smiles.
