The dancer’s analogy

Narijana maanasa chora, Mahameru samaana dheera/ Kavijana poshaka mandaara, sarasata kala dora, ni vera. (Beloved of all womankind, majestic as Mount Meru, the source of bounty for poets, dear Lord, heart-stealer, come!) Mamukaruna joochutaku velara, idi velara, ni daanara, Nannelukora, Dwarkadishwara. (It is time you took pity on me, I am yours utterly, Redeem me, Lord of Dwarka.)

As the sabdam built up tempo, the audience would tense and fall absolutely silent. Not a muscle seemed to move in those intent faces focused on the stage. There was barely a ripple as the rhythm changed subtly to the finale which I danced in total enslavement to the nayika’s heartbeat. At the end, it took a moment or two for people to realise that the sabdam was over. A collective sigh would escape before the applause began.

The tarangam wrought with equal power on most people: a triumphant joyous lyric to blue-bodied Krishna (`Neela megha sareera’), to which I danced rhythmically on a copper plate, with a waterpot balanced on my head. This was a feat of coordination that upset purists as it seemed to smack of the circus, but to my mind it seemed an exciting fusion of desi (folk) and margi (classical) traditions, in which the bravura energy of the `little’ melded with the epic theme of the `great’.

There was, in fact, a philosophical significance to the waterpot and plate which was once explained to an audience by Dr S. Radhakrishnan, President of India, before I danced the tarangam.

“It is an analogy for life itself,” said this supremely dignified scholar and philosopher, quoting an appropriate Sanskrit sloka: Punkhanu punkha vishayaan upasevyamanaha/ Dheeronna munchati mukunda padaravindam/ Sangeeta vadya laya tala vasangatapi/ Moulista kumbha parirakshana dheernativa. (Like the dancer who concentrates on the waterpot while dancing to the music, accompanied by melodic instruments and rhythmic patterns, the Brave One contemplates the divine feet of God, although saddled with worldly worries.)

This can be further interpreted as: “We are all bound to this earth (the brass plate under the feet) and we carry heavy responsibilities on our head (signified by the waterpot, from which not a drop is supposed to spill). But just as the dancer moves joyously in rhythm, her mind in glorious contemplation of God, so too should life be lived, with grace, energy and good purpose.”

Audiences always seemed to love the tarangam, just as they did the pulsating Krishna Sabdam. It never failed to move me that our dance appeared to cut though all our accreted layers of identity and activated this drumming in the blood, like a shared race memory.