Keeping Tradition Alive

The conversation moves on to the age-old guru-shishya equation. 8216;8216;I have learnt a great deal by watching my father Acchan Maharaj...

Birju Maharaj

WHEN the Kathak Kendra asked Birju Maharaj to retire he was saddened and disappointed. What would life be without students? Three years hence, things are looking up again. Every evening, the community centre at New Delhi8217;s Jor Bagh comes alive with the sounds of ghungroos as Maharajji instructs a small class of eight diligent students. 8216;8216;I have been teaching since the age of 14,8217;8217; he says, almost defensively, as if to explain his need to carry on.

Dressed in a long beige coloured kurta and white churidaar, Maharajji perches on a high chair and plays the tabla while Saswati Sen his most senior disciple, who also teaches the junior lot and Mahua Choudhury take to the floor and demonstrate a few steps. 8216;8216;There are no hour-specifications. We can even do taal or bol for four hours at a stretch, depending upon our mood,8217;8217; says this Lucknow Gharana exponent.

It is all about personal attention at Maharajji8217;s institute. 8216;8216;Those who don8217;t care about degrees come to me. I teach only a handful of students and I give them a lot of attention,8217;8217; he says firmly.

The conversation moves on to the age-old guru-shishya equation. 8216;8216;I have learnt a great deal by watching my father Acchan Maharaj. And I believe that the best way to learn is to observe and watch the expressions, movement of the hand and feet and the synchronisation of both. That8217;s what I tell my students as well.8221;

As he takes a break from the tabla, Maharajji shares that it is age alone that has blessed him with the patience requisite for being a good teacher. 8216;8216;When I was young, I would lose my temper. But age has mellowed me,8217;8217; laughs Maharajji.

A stickler for the perfect emotion, Maharajji seeks his inspiration from the most unconventional sources. He narrates how he learnt to portray restraint from a young girl eating golgappas in a crowded Lucknow market. 8216;8216;She was eating in such a carefree manner. But the minute she saw me noticing her, she lowered her eyes in the most brilliant cautious fashion,8217;8217; he reminisces. An exposure to Russian aerobics, while visiting Russia, made him realise the importance of exercise for footwork.

So, even though he finds pace of the changing times drastic, he beams with pride while admitting that he has done his best to preserve the essence of the dance form. 8216;8216;Though I have adapted some movements, I haven8217;t begun to wear a shirt or a pant during the performance. But one needs to be realistic. Earlier, people would love to sit through two hours of taal but to grab the attention of today8217;s audience, you have to decorate the dance with tarana, footwork, meaning and movement. They won8217;t relish more than 15 minutes of taal,8217;8217; he says before resuming his classes.