Kathak in a Shade of Ebony

Quincy Kendell Charles,a trained Kathak dancer from Trinidad and Tobago,talks about his love for the dance form,learning Hindi,living in Delhi,and fighting prejudices.

Once upon a time in an island nation,a 15-year-old boy saw a woman dancing on television. He had grown up watching his grandmother dance to Raj Kapoor movies in Mayaro,a city of sand and surf,but hed never seen anything quite like this. He was intrigued by the harmony between music and dance,between percussion and footwork. The contrast between the dancers swirls and stillness mesmerised him. Like most interests not just the adolescent kind this too could have passed in a week,elbowed out by the next visiting craze. Instead,it remained steadfast. The boy who had grown up on gymnastics and soccer grew up to become a Kathak dancer. Belonging to Trinidad and Tobago,where the curry is second to none,Quincy Kendell Charles story is anything but typical. He went to school in Trinidad,spent his vacations in London and has now made Delhi his home because here he can learn and master Kathak and be recognised for his immaculate presentation according to acclaimed critic Leela Venkataraman. When he started learning Kathak under Susan Mohip the lady hed seen dancing on TV,his family of professors and doctors thought that academic pressures would prevail soon enough over cultural distractions. His cousins and aunts initially didnt quite get what he was doing. And when he recited the bols,his cousins,with the cruelty of children,would ask him what demonic sounds he was uttering. Over time,however,they realised that Kathak wasnt a passing fad for Charles,nor was it an incomprehensible art form; instead,it was his passion,an obsession,perhaps,and a beautiful dance form.

All dances,specially classical dance,come with their own unwritten strictures and rules. Some that seem relevant and others that seem detrimental to the form. As a black male Kathak dancer,Charles has shown that beauty lies in precision,not colour,and that grace lies in rhythm,not gender. Trained in the Lucknow gharana under Guru Jai Kishan Maharaj son of Birju Maharaj and in the Jaipur gharana under Prerana Shrimali,Charles effortlessly conveys his knowledge of and zeal for Kathak to his audience,whether he is performing in London,Stockholm or Patiala.

His understanding of Kathak arises from two starting points,music and maths. Nearly two decades after he started training in Kathak,he says,My dance training is officially over. Im now trying to become a musician. In my Kathak journey,I have realised that dance is a by-product of music. One has to first become a musician and then become a dancer. Already a dancer,he is now learning the pakhawaj. A BSc in pure maths from the University of Kent,UK,Charles easily appreciates the arithmetic behind Kathak. He explains that Kathak is after all a series of calculations,a topic that he explored as part of his university thesis,Mathematics in Indian classical dance. Knowing the formulae of Kathak,understanding the workings of the cyclical beats or taals is the first step,whereas applying that knowledge requires a lifetime of dedication.

His knack for music and calculations has guided him towards the art of upaj or improvisation. While beats,movement and emotion are the essence of dance,for Charles,the holy grail is upaj,because a dancer must be in perfect sync with his musicians and the moment to improvise effectively. And a dancer can do that only once he/she has mastered the basics. He likens upaj to the Tardis telephone booth of the popular and iconic television series Dr Who to explain that it is much bigger inside than it appears on the outside.

To plumb the depths of Kathak,Charles realises that he must become fluent in Hindi and Sanskrit. Having lived in Delhi for close to five years,he knows sufficient Hindi for hailing an auto or a waiter and other everyday transactions. Conscious that Hindi is the medium of Kathak,prior to a performance,he by-hearts the words,extracts the meanings and recites them during the show. He is now learning Sanskrit in the Hindi medium,a painstaking process,as it involves learning two languages simultaneously. But his knowledge of maths comes handy once again as he finds Sanskrit a perfectly logical,if complex,language.

In Delhi,he has lived through a series of ups and downs. The ups include sugarcane juice,which he survives on in summer,and rajma rich in butter. The downs involve a succession of landlords the greedy and the bigoted kind and six house shifts in four months. He rattles off his different addresses,from Greater Kailash and Nizamuddin to Lajpat Nagar and Amar Colony,where he now stays. Many owners lay the blame at the neighbours door,claiming that while they personally had no problem,others might be uncomfortable. One owner even told him to rehearse elsewhere as his footwork was causing cracks in the floor.

Despite his attempts and successes at embracing Indian culture,Charles hasnt found equal love in return. In our shamefully prejudiced society,his talent has been met,too often,by the rebuff Gora chahiye,or Ladki chahiye. Speaking over lunch at Delhis cultural hub Triveni,he says,People judge you by your skin colour and the hair on your head. It makes me feel depressed that people can look at someone and before they can open their mouth,they judge you. I see the look in peoples eyes and faces. It is very hard. Ive lost out on many opportunities because of it. It happens within the dance fraternity as well. It is very difficult. You see less deserving Im not saying Im more deserving,but work speaks people getting more chances.

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With a strain of Indian blood on his fathers side and having grown up watching Hindi movies,which seemed to run on forever on weekends,Charles has one big aspiration,to dance in a pure Kathak number in a Bollywood movie. When he shared his dream,with a nice,sweet but blunt acquaintance,he was told,It will be easier for a horse to pass through the eye of a needle. Because you are the wrong shade. Ebony is a shade that Charles loves,one that he is proud of and finds very beautiful. With resignation,yet strength,he says,I dont understand why prejudice should get in the way of talent. But what to do? What to do? It is hurtful,yet one must carry on.