aseema

again the Devadasi

2011-02-01T14:48:00.002+05:30

It was lovely watching Shyamala, Balasaraswathy's disciple dancing Mohamana Varnam in Tiruvarur temple. Hats off to Ranvir for organising such a great event. There was also Saskia Karsenboom doing Abhinaya for nadaswaram and of course dear dear friend David Shulman's book on Tiruvarur Devasriya mantapam paintings released. Devesh Soneji and Saskia and Rajeswari Ghosh spoke about their own relationship to the temple of Tiruvarur. It is destiny that brought Gujarathi speaking Devesh and the Dutch Saskia to Tiruvarur temple.

Saskia writes that modern India did not allow Devadasis to continue their ritual duties. She is confusing between the culture of the Devadasi and the human rights issue that Dr,Muthulakshmi Reddy fought for. If archakas in a temple could lead normal family life and be employed in the temple why could the Devadasis not marry and become the other woman in another woman's life? It was the culture of dedicating the girls that Dr.Muthulakshmi Reddy fought against and Rukmini Devi had nothing to do with that. She of course went along with the upper caste idea of the bhoga dasis spoiling a married woman's life by claiming the affection of her husband. Rukmini devi saw the dance and wanted to learn it. She later added her own repertoire to the dance.
The other side should understand that the orientalists would have left the devadasi culture alone if there was no issue of bonded labour and extra marital relationships and no rights for inheritance and name of the father.
Every dancer gives to dance whatever she can and Rukmini devi gave her own samskara as did several Devadasis before her.

Bharathanatyam...

2011-01-07T07:48:00.004+05:30

"A brief note is necessary to situate myself as a student of one of the hereditary families of non Brahmin musicians and dancers" writes Methew H.Allen in the book "Bharathanatyam - A Reader" edited by Devesh Soneji. "That Rukmini devi was an intimate participant in the disenfranchisement of a community of artists to which my teacher's family belongs must not blind me as a scholar to the fact that she was simultaneously a dedicated artist and organiser who inspired many thousands of young people to study and respect the artistic traditions of India". Actually, this should have been on the jacket of the book as the entire north American academic scholarship is blinded by this one fact. The book makes no critical enquiry into the fact that Bala and her brothers fame and glory was mainly because of the Madras Music Academy the most nationalistic institution, a direct result of the meeting of Indian National Congress populated by Brahmins and other upper caste men and largely due to the efforts of people like E.Krishna Iyer, V.Raghavan, Narayana Menon etc. These men played a great role in the coming out of Balasaraswathi on to the national and international stage and were instrumental in her getting the Sangeeta kalanidhi. This privilege was denied to lesser members of the community. There is no looking into who wrote Bala's essay, when did Bala start performing Krishna nee begane baro, what and how did she teach non Indians etc and how the proximity to the family coloured two generations of academic pursuit in North America. Rukmini Devi had her faults like every one else. Her disciples even more... But they decided to call their dance Bharathanatyam and not Sadir (OK the word was already there but they preferred using that as their dance was different from Sadir). The academia condemns Rukmini Devi for using the word Bharathanatyam and for dancing devotional pieces. Harikrishnan has advised Anita Ratnam to call her dance Neo Bharatham as it is not Bharathanatyam. The same logic can apply for Rukmini devi too. The academia in north America damned Rukmini Devi for calling her dance something else and for introducing new pieces. Why then did Bala not insist in calling her dance Sadir and not Bharathanatyam? Why did she not give her daughter the initial T? These and many more are questions that need looking into........ The academia in NA forgets we are many layered people and that we have something called Dashavataram and accept change and different view points and practices as part of our way of life.. The book does not look into the fact that Muthulakshmi Reddi was the product of a marriage between a Brahmin man and a woman from the Devadasi community. That she was closer to her maternal cousins than her paternal cousins. She had seen both the worlds and hence most qualified to speak on behalf of the Devadasis. She had no intention in taking away the dance and making it her own. She was only looking at the health issues involved in the fact that girls married to the God were having children and had no human right to choose. Girls from poor families adopted by devadasis were up for the highest bidder and became a cash cow for the older Devadasis. None of this is touched by the fundamentalist academia that wants to punch the Bharathanatyam practitioners from outside the community in the face just like the goons who went into a bar in Mangalore and punched girls drinking in a bar saying girls had no right to drink.

Revival...?!

2011-01-05T21:50:00.002+05:30

Guru Kittappa Pillai teaches a Bharathanatyam adavu korvai in the frontal position. Sishya Harikrishnan decides to turn it sideways and back. Wow! material for a future researcher of Bharathanatyam to look for a conspiracy theory. Doing away with Kittappa Pillai's dance?
Harikrishnan's decision to change the direction of the adavu has come from the changed ambience for his dance.You would not believe Srividya Natarajan, Harikrishnan and Narthaki Nataraj were the disciples of the same Guru. Srividya bounces with joy in her dance, stretching her fingers out into the beyond, Harikrishnan dances with his tummy forward, making every movement of his in the face, aggressive stress on a point of view. As aggressive as his oratory. Does this not disprove the theory that every Devadasi danced the same?

Conspiracy theories abound in the Bharathanatyam academia these days. The Tanjore quartet conspired to do away with Devadasi dance by creating the Margam, Rukmini Devi of course the ultimate villain who conspired to take away conjugal bliss from the dance, Ananda Coomaraswamy who took away the different forms of Siva by focusing on Nararaja. etc etc etc etc...... Why cont the academia also look at the original conspiracy theory where the upper caste men conspired to have their cake and eat it too in getting the temple to accept the Devadasi system? They could have a family approved family and also have a learned woman they could enjoy the company of, give her children but have no responsibility whatsoever! it is this that Dr.Muthulakshmi Reddy wanted to change. It is made out that it was the influence of orientalists and Brahmins that made Reddy work on this. But EVR Periyar supported her completely. The dravidian movement was with her. How come no one has studied this?

There is a romantic notion that the Devadasi was powerful and she was given lands etc but the upper caste men knew better. They made the God co owner of everything the Dasi owned that meant she could never sell anything. She just could live there with her many children and their children etc Always at the mercy of the temple trustees and priests.

Balasaraswathi was never a devadasi. her great grand mother had made the wise decision to move to Madras and so her family was not serving in any temple when Bala was born. So why is the North American academia so obsessed with proving Rukmini Devi the villain?

Change is the only constant thing but Wesleyan university's Ethnic musicology department still carries on with one point of view. That of just one family of dancers who were bitter that others were learning the dance they so guarded as their own. (It is the NRI mindset. Every Brahmin you meet in the US laments the reservation system and that non Brahmins are everywhere in India) Every family thinks they are the greatest. Sure they were great but their foreign trip and presentations outside the chamber concert of Veena Dhanammal was surely the result of the "revival" that was happening.

More on Devadasi vs Rukmini Devi...

2010-12-27T15:05:00.004+05:30

Saskia Karsenboom gave two statements in her talk of deseating Nataraja from his wrongly exalted pedestal. She recalled a private joke of T.Shankaran (Balasaraswathi's cousin) "When Bala danced there is Bhakthi and when Rukmini danced there is Agarbatti". She also questioned the identity of the urban Indian Bharathanatyam dancer who has been wrongly told the varnam swamiye is talking about spirituality. "The identity should be Meenakshi. She is addressing Siva, seaking conjugal bliss". Ok granted. But then there is something called Swadharma in Indian tradition. Since that Meenakashi is expressing herself through the dancer's body which is in current time and is fed by current sensibilities and if this Meenakshi decides conjugal bliss is spiritual too. Who are we to question her?

Though she insisted it was a joke, her first statement brought focus to the Bala camp that North American academia wants everyone to belong to. They are some how against Rukmini Devi and Kalakshetra. Harikrishnan has the advantage of indulging in fanciful modern avant garte productions and invite people to the Bhoga mela dances and claim to be traditional. The north Americans get ears by their sheer orality and bombastic academic jargan.

Saskia Karsenboom, Devesh Soneji, Harikrishnan

2010-12-26T19:05:00.004+05:30

Saskia Karsenboom, Devesh Soneji, Harikrishnan are the new policemen for the classical dance world. They tell you what we should like and dislike and they want to glorify the crime of dedicating young girls to temples and also the bhoga mela members. It is fine, guys if only it was out of choice of the girl. Did she have any say in what she was doing? What about her human rights? The upper caste men of the medieval ages made a cosy arrangement for themselves. They married their cousins when they were very young, had several kids by the time the girl was 16 and then they needed entertainment and sex. So they got the temple to supply to them girls who had been married to God and trained in the fine arts. They could be entertained with the finest music and dance and bodily pleasure and since the girls were wedded to the God, had no responsibility towards the children produced by this association. The children went in their mother's name and made do with whatever the father had gifted their mother. Dr.Muthulakshmi Reddy fought this system and got the Devadasi system outlawed. Then the dance was available to the wide world to interpret it and dance it without having to surrender rights of wifehood, motherhood etc.
Balasaraswathi, the crowning glory of the Devadasi line which claimed descent from the Rajarajeswaram of Tanjavur, had the advantage of belonging to a lineage, the revival scene and the Madras Music Academy to back her up. She never was a Devadasi. She was not married to a God and work in a temple. Bob Brown, a great lover of her dance, took her and her brothers to the US where she impacted hugely, the academia while Rukmini Devi Arundale, coming into the dance through the International route, impacted hugely, the practitioners here. The academia in North America finds fault with the nationalist movement, the dance revival, the use of Nataraja on the stage and they question the urban Indian dancer's right to dance and her identity. All of them are not native born to the Balasaraswathi tradition but claim to be the keepers of the tradition. I have not heard and seen such a paradox ever in my life. They dont like the Nataraja figure, they dont like English education, urban girls learning dance (they themselves are very urban and international). The British should not have ruled us, the education system should not have been there, Muthulakshmi Reddy's father should have just kept her mother (like many of his generation had done very respectably and not married her making her give the same rights her paternal cousins had to her maternal cousins) Then the North American academia would have been happy perhaps.

So Sir Devesh, Hari, Saskia madam, shall we revive the system of dedicating young girls to temples, create bhoga melas, bar women of upper caste view these and limit the dance to them? Why then not revive the sati system, child marriage, multiple marriages, untouchability etc also?

International Visitor Leadership programme of US State department

2010-05-25T08:30:00.004+05:30

The US Consulate in Chennai organised for me to have a voluntary visitor leadership programme on the last week of my tour. They really did a great job of putting together a most magnificent programme for me to visit institutions working on peace education, conflict resolution, peace building etc in Washington DC and New York city and gave me a guide Mrs.Mary Wilburn, a retired lawyer who took me around. It was great company as she gave me historical stories as we went around, pointed out unusual things and insisted I go into the Indian embassy and say Hello after I took pictures at the Gandhi Statue in the nation's capital. As expected, Indian embassy was least interested in their citizen. In fact, the lady receptionist told me that she was surprised to see an Indian taking pictures at the Gandhi statue. "Normally it is Americans and others who take pictures there" she said and brushed us off. My meetings with institutions working on non violence, conflict resolution and peace building was most productive. The most interesting thing was when I was having a meeting at the Meridian International House, a gorgeous woman peeped in and said "I heard there is an Indian visiting and I could not resist the temptation to say Namasthe. I lived in India for three years." I said I am from Chennai and it was Chennai she had lived in as the wife of a US embassy official. The beautiful woman Joan Huskey took me out to lunch after our respective meetings and told me the story of her co founding Global Adjustments, a business that helps expatriates to settle in India and the American International School. We had a most marvelous conversation. Every name she mentioned, I knew very well. My itinerary was fulfilling. Here is the list.
May 3rd - International Visitor Leadership programme visit Meeting with Ms.P.Kowall, Programme Officer, Office of International visitors, US Department of State, Mr.Lau Gieszel, President elect of Association for conflict resolution at Meridan International House,Surprise meeting with Joanne Huskey, Mr. Charles F.Dambach,President and CEO Alliance for Peace building, Ms.Patricia Maulden, Institute for Conflict Resolution, George Mason University, Washington DC.May 4th - International Visitor Leadership programme Meeting with Mr.Lakshitha Saji Prelis, Associate Director, Peace building and Development Institute, American University, Mr.Jefferey W.Helsing, Deputy Director, Education and Training Center of U.S.Institute for Peace, center for Mediation and Conflict Resolution, Washington DCMay 6th - International Visitor Leadership programme - meeting with Ms.Elizabeth Enlow, Regional Director, American Friends Service, Ms.Karen Bernstein and Ms.Nivedita Gutta, of Safe Horizon Mediation Programme, Ms.Jane Brody of Peace first New York City.May 7th - International Visitor Leadership programme - Meeting with R.J.DeSena Founder President Council for Peace, Creative Arts Team, the City University of New York and witnessing performance of "Face It" - presented by City at Peace - New York.

Toronto

2010-04-24T07:51:00.004+05:30

School of art and design Toronto

Visiting Toronto after 25 years and staying in the same house I did then! Rosemary Jeans Antze, a former National Ballet of Canada dancer and her Anthropology professor husband Paul Antze are so alive with inspiring conversation. Their first daughter Emily was 6 months old then. She is now 25 and has turned an intellectual too. She has a younger sister who is into studying animal behaviour. Rosemary took me on a drive round the streets of Toronto and to the art gallery of Ontorio. Fantastic architecture of wood standing next to another very interesting architecture of the school of art and design which is a rectangular building standing on stilts. There is an exhibition of wood and the trees within the wood in the art gallery that is really amazing. Rosemary also took me to the alumni get together for the 50th anniversery of National ballet school of Canada. Got to watch classes, see rehearsals etc. Heavenly gift for some one passionate about dance.

Thomas Alva Edison

2010-04-22T00:31:00.003+05:30

Went with my brother Ravi to Thomas Alva Edison's laboratories today in New Jersey. Amazing. So interesting! The inventor of electric bulb, gramophone, cement, motion picture and several others. Overwhelming. He had the first motion picture shooting studio built on circular moving platform to have the whole building move to get sun shine inside. In North America the sun rises at different points at different months of the year. The machine shop, the elevator he used, the first song recording etc etc are all there just as he had left them. He even put a tiny gramophone inside a doll to make it talk. Just great feeling visiting it and listening to his voice, seeing the first motion pictures ever made.

Earlier it was a visit to Rubin museum of Himalayan art in New York. The exhibition on cosmology is mind blowing. Feel good walk around Union Square meeting Abby Robinson after six years, walking around with her and trying to spot the iron man sculptures on top of buildings who look like they are just about to jump off. Nice break from my lecture routine.
Lovely trip to Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. an intimate experience of the arts. C
see my pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/vrdevika

New England

2010-04-15T01:52:00.004+05:30

What a beautiful place this is! The drive from Amherst to Mt.Holyoke is so very beautiful. the drive back is so nice with the sun shining on the trees which are getting green and all the colour and amazing stars. I cant help but be awestruck. My mind keeps going over the Natya dance presentation at Peabody and Essex museum. the way the space was used and the charm of choreography. As I always say, it is the audience that determines the way of the dance. and the place and surroundings. beautiful. Natyashastra itself says one must dance according to kaala (time) and desha (place). That is what most dancers do. In my opinion there is only good dance and bad dance. Good dance is what touches the heart irrespective of technique and mode etc. The academics can shout from roof tops about what dance should be. But dance is what it is.

Us 2010 II

2010-04-13T00:09:00.002+05:30

Sun is shining bright. They said it would not. But it is still cold outside. It is so cosy to be sitting inside. At Amherst feel like I am home in Konda and Aparna Reddy's home. Konda is a friend from world education and as strict as one can be with himself. He is working for world ed and doing his PhD in Amherst College. Betsy and Peter Nelson drove me here from their town Harvard. A lovely home with absolutely beautiful things. Both in their seventies, they have not slowed down at all. They are my friends from IPN and we have met around the world. Betsy is one of the kindest persons I have met and Peter is a charmer. They drove me to Salem for the "Sensational India.." fest going on at Peabody Essex Museum with Natya theatre of Chicago dancing. The day turned out to be quite beautiful in contrast to the rainy and cold previous day. kathryn Myers drove to Wellesley from Connecticut for the seminar on Gond art of India and the exhibition. What a nice suprise to meet Stephen Huyler. I told him that a friend gave me his "Daughters of India" book and said one of women featured could be me and that I was greatly pleased that the friend had referred to Suniti Narayanan. He too loved Suniti. I told him how we bonded before her death. I took a picture with him. His presentation of Sonabai was amazing. Met a charming couple from Connecticut Kumars of INTACH CT. A nice Indian lunch and a viewing of the Gond art exhibition but the hall was too cold and made me sleepy though I was so very much interested in the papers being presented. Betsy and Peter came to Wellesley college to pick me up. Peter informs me that Hillary Clinton went to Wellesley. Charming town. Dinner at an Indian restaurant with their son Charles, his wife Stacy and their children. Stacy is very fond of Indian food and comes there often and knows all recipes there. She also has a very dear friend in the school where she teachers who is Indian and teaches her Indian cooking. we then went to Harvard town to the Nelson home and next day to Peabody and Essex museum etc. Dropped the camera and feeling very sorry about it. Betsy has given me her camera for the rest of the trip but see some pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/vrdevika

US 2010

2010-03-30T22:18:00.003+05:30

Wheeew! the first phase of my 65 days tour of US is just finished. I feel I have been away from home for months but it has been only 27 days. Mexico was great! Antonio Prieto really worked hard to make everything happen. What a fantastic coincidence that he, introduced to me by Sangeeta, happens to be in the same university as my nephew Dinesh Rao and his wife Diana Perez! amazing. Antonio organised a talk on Gandhi for students of MA trans discipline and a talk on performing and education and then asked me to talk to his class on drama. wonderful experience. Then there was the big surprise that the biggest chain of book stores in Mexico is called Gandhi and the smaller store in Xalapa is called Gandhi's spinning wheel! I went to the bookstore and gave a demo of the spinning wheel that I have brought from India.
Then the pyramids Diana's mother drive Dinu and me to the pyramids near Mexico city. Awesome! check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teotihuacan
Then to Atlanta to meet Hema Ramanathan dear dear friend from PSS School, Madras with whom I share a rare affection and friendship and sisterhood. lovely. she takes me to Martin Luther King memorial site and we have a great bonding time.
From there to Greenville in North Carolina to speak in ECU. I had met Alice Arnold just once in Taiwan in the World Creativity summit. Alice worked really hard to put this visit together. A reception and talk on Gandhi at her local Unitarian church for the community, a reception and talk at the International House of ECU, a talk at the women's studies group and two classes of intro to Asia and Hinduism. Prof Derek Meher and Prof. John Tucker were amazing! they let me take their class and answer questions. Imagine meeting an undergraduate class reading the text of Brihadaaranyaka Upanishad and rigveda! amazing!
then on to Yogaville a magical world created in Buckingham county of Virginia by Swami Sachitadanda. It is located on top of a hill near James river and there is spectacular sunrise and sunset. The lotus silent prayer hall is for silent meditation and is dedicated to all religions. the experience is out of the world. just too beautiful. The samadhi of the swami has a life like statue and it looks like he really is living. A huge Nataraja is set on the high point on the hill and he turns twice a day. the Nataraja, the samadhi and the lotus prayer all aligned in one line from the top of the hill to the lake below. beautiful.
Padmarani Rasiah whom I knew 30 years ago rehearsing at the Dhananjayans grew up in the Ashram. She is now married to a most wonderful Mexican man and remains an ardent devotee of the swamiji. They drove to me from Richmond airport to yogaville. a beautiful room awaited me and then to the prayer hall for the satsang with bhajans being sung in American accent. then a video of the swami talking on who are you? and then my talk on Gandhi. I was a little unnerved in the beginning but later on gained confidence. Showed Gandhi films and my spinning wheel and was able to refer to Swami's talk in my talk. Great response from all the kind people there.
Next day rev. Saraswathi drove me around to give me a tour of the 1000 acre ashram. Great feeling. Was asked to do the arathi in the morning puja and show it to people. lunch and then quick change to sari and two hour drive to richmond. we went straight to the Hindu centre where students of padma and their parents were waiting. my talk was on Nataraja and the constellation Orion and the traditional performing arts. A demo of the spinning wheel. great response again. potluck dinner.
next day Srija came and drove me to her daughter's school. She told me stories about the ancestry of her people in Kerala and in short pump school, I showed the khadi film and a demo of spinning wheel. They gave me a gift coupon for Barnes and Noble store and a water bottle. went to the shop opposite and did a little shopping. Aparna then took me to her son's Montessori school where I did a little story telling and showed the spinning wheel. really sweet. she then took her son and me to an Imax theatre at the science museum to see the film on Arabia. the only people in the theatre were the three of us! great!
Next morning to the airport to go to Wooster. Lovely day as I am driven to Wooster city from the airport. relaxing in Shila Garg's house waiting for her to come home. She came and took me out to dinner at the Wooster inn with Shirley. lovely. next day to the college a mudra and dance of rituals class for the dance department and then a public lecture on Gandhi. Dinner with Rakhal Purkayastha who has come from Meghalaya on a Fulbright fellowship. great dosas made by shila. nice husband of hers kept urging us to eat more.
next day there was snow on the ground everywhere! a tour of the college, lunch with Jill and Rakhal, his class, meeting with Prof.Isvar Harris, a Gandhi scholar from India, then the lecture on diversity by the president of the college and my nephew Tejas coming from Ann arbour Michigan to take me home. A great three hour drive through corn fields etc. relaxing. then home.
total relaxing time with Tejas and his wife Sarah and children Sanjay and Uma. Visiting the farmer's market, lunch at India restaurant Shalimar and visiting their Bhargav and his wife Rasika who have brought a new baby home.
Back now in New jersey after an eventful flight through Philadelphia. relaxing time for me today and to catch up with laundry etc. see pictures at
http://picasaweb.google.com/vrdevika

A friend in need

2009-12-09T16:42:00.003+05:30

Prof. Swaminathan is a rare individual with a rare passion. He is a kind of modern day Robin Hood except that he does not steal. He just takes ideas and shares with people who need them. He is a store house of information he has collected from all over. He has no qualms about sharing them with anyone. A rare individual interested in heritage in a scientific manner without giving in to emotions and muddling things. I have learnt a lot from him. Most important quality of his is humility and getting other people interested in heritage and sharing ideas. He gave me so much information on Gandhi. So I thought it fit to gift him with a khadi yarn garland that I spun myself.

an article I wrote in Times of India

2009-11-27T13:56:00.003+05:30

This is the unedited version of the article that appeared in Times of India of 27th November 2009 in the Chennai supplement called idiva - Devika
-----------------
Vishalam Ramanathan sits surrounded by the umpteen bouquets of flowers sent by genuine admirers… overwhelmed with a big surprise party she received on her entering her sixtieth year. A woman I consider truly free, yet completely immersed in life. She is like a drop of water on a lotus leaf. There, yet not there. Completely present but untouched by the travails of life around.. amazing grace… she seems to be always aware of the totality and hence always functioning with her total attention to what she is doing at the moment whether it is getting a government minister to listen to her or tending to the unwell son of a watchman or doing the ritual obligations at home or sweeping the floor or cleaning the toilet…. So the richest and poorest rubbed shoulders in embracing her on her birthday…
This must be the kind of woman Paulo Coelho thought of while asking people to follow their dreams. Listen to your hearts says Coelho, there is essential wisdom in it and learn to read the omens strewn along life’s path and above all follow your dreams….
We live in fragments.. We are one thing at the office another at home, we talk about democracy but at heart we want people to do our bidding. The self as J.Krishnamurthy says is a complex entity moving, living, struggling, wanting, denying, with pressures and stresses and influences of all sorts continually at work on it.
True freedom is when a woman decked top to bottom in gold and diamonds can walk alone in the streets in the middle of the night without fear of being mugged said Gandhi. He was dreaming of a utopia where every one was good. But then freedom is also feeling empowered in a restricted space through a belief in oneself and in the goodness of being. None of the agonies of suppression, nor the brutal discipline of conforming to a pattern has led to truth says JK to come upon truth; the mind must be completely free, without a spot of distortion.
What do we want to break away from? Fear? Pain? I would say we want to break away from Sexism. I do not understand for the life of me, why in a marriage, the girl’s family is lower in status. They host the wedding and listen to every whim and fancy of the groom’s people. When it is the girl’s family that is losing something. They are losing a child they have brought up with loving care and the groom’s family gains a woman who is to become a full time cook, nurse, caretaker, house keeper, a sexual partner for the young man and the mother of his children. Why? Why then should the girl’s family feel they are obliged to bend backwards to please the groom’s family? Should it not be the other way round? Only daughters can change this if they decide marriage is not the be all and end all of a girl’s life and that they will not brook humiliation at marriage and turn down a proposal if there is any demand for pampering by the groom’s family. Fear of what people will say keeps girls from doing what they want to do. The Bharathanatyam dancer Bragha Bessel was surprised when a proposal for marriage to a British citizen came through the theosophical society. She wondered what people will say. I told her marry him if you want to. People will of course talk but they will talk for three days and then find something else to talk about. If you want to break free the first thing to break free from is the fear factor. When I decided to live on my own, there were eyebrows raised. How can a single woman live on her own in our society? Is not an unmarried woman to be looked after by parents or brothers even if she is over forty? But I was convinced that it does not take people more than a fortnight to know who you are. Then they will accept you. “First they will laugh at you, argue with you and then they fight you and then you win”
Feminist theory argues that sexism is a result of male values of aggression and dominance. I would argue that this difference is the result of conditioning and cultural forces. While many would agree that the family is a trap, most reject the idea that the existence of class society is an important factor. The key to emphasise is a need for change in men’s' attitudes. But let us face it why would they want to change their attitude when the status quo is to their advantage. Let us also face the fact that no matter how attitudes change, men are as powerless as individuals in regard to their working conditions as women are in their situations. Here and there come men who break out of their circumstance go after their dreams. So do women. Even women in trapped situations.
All it calls for is a dream and courage.. fly … jump …….it is after all your own destination…

2009-11-17T15:31:00.003+05:30

Samudhra magazine for the arts awarded "Gnanasamudhra" title to V.R.Devika for her work in linking arts and education during their 7th anniversery celebration on 15th November 2009. The award was presented by philonthrophist Nalli Kuppuswamy Chetty and Mrs.Y.G.Parthasarathy, dean and director of Padma Sheshadri Schools. Dr.Srinidhi Chidambaram inaugurated the function by lighting a kuthuvilakku and Mr.Natarajan, former director of Doordarshan and Mr.Nagai Muralidharan participated. The citation reads "Samudhra is proud to confer the title "Gnana Samudhra" on V.R.Devika art educator, writer and critic during its 7th anniversary celebration in recognition of her innovative approach in linking art and education and using it as an effective tool especially among children. May God Almighty bless her with long life and strength to continue rendering service towards the cause of fine arts" signed by Dr.Nalli Kuppuswamy Chetti, Patron and Dr.Radha Bhaskar, editor.
more pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/trustaseema/GnanasamudhraAwardToVRDevika#

picture of a boat

2009-11-01T23:23:00.001+05:30

the name of this boat caught my attention!

story telling at Dakshinachitra

2009-10-25T22:15:00.003+05:30

A story telling session for Semester at Sea students who took an art of living course at Dakshinachitra turned out to be quite enjoyable and judging from the response of the students, by them too. I rushed from Dakshinachittra straight to Mylapore Fine Arts club to compere the music of Brazil programme of Indian Council for Cultural Relations. Such a feeling of joy to be with art all the time. very elevating I would not give this up for anything.

a sharing session

2009-10-24T20:43:00.005+05:30

Prema kasturi asked me to give a talk to her friends at Medha Maithri a group of women interested in knowledge quest. I gave my talk on the Nataraja icon and orion constellation with a ppt presentation and story telling. Great response from everyone present. Great feeling!!1

an article in News today

2009-10-11T16:24:00.003+05:30

www.newstodaynet.com

Mahatma, message, music

T S Atul Swaminathan Wed, 30 Sep, 2009 , 02:56 PM
.
Mahatma Gandhi comes alive for V R Devika, managing trustee of Chennai-based Aseema Trust, not just on 2 October and 30 January— his birth and death anniversaries, respectively. She constantly works on taking the ideals of the Father of the Nation to school students, teachers and community groups through her project ‘Spin a Yarn’.
Through a focus on the performing arts of South India such as puppetry, dance, theater and music, the Aseema Trust reinforces a respect for differences, dignity in labour, and integrity in cultural preservation. Today, several projects fall under the Aseema umbrella— from teaching Gandhian principles through spinning workshops to leading a group of Indian performing arts children through the Netherlands. And from storytelling at a temporary shelter for Tsunami survivors in Nagapattinam district to conducting a project using traditional performing arts as an empowering tool.‘I have conducted the spin a yarn project in ten different schools in the city. The spinning on the Charkha is taught to the students to bring the lesser known ideals of Gandhi like cleanliness, civic responsibilities, respect for diversity and dignity of labour’, she says.Passionate about working with children, Devika came to Chennai as a young woman from her native city of Mysore to pursue higher education. She was asked to join as a teacher in a kindergarten school teacher. She loved it so much that she forgot about doing her masters degree.She however did her master’s degree in Gandhian Thoughts thirty years later and is now working on a Ph D on Gandhi at the department of Philosophy, University of Madras.‘In 1996, I founded the trust to link arts and education and to make the Mahatma relevant today. I did a series of workshops for students and teachers on ‘Swaraj’ at Dakshinachitra. I am going to organise sessions on reproductive health and AIDS and also dance sessions to create a awareness on Ahimsa,’ she says.Devika has also learnt Bharata Natyam and began to incorporate lessons from the traditional art into her teaching method. Deep interest in the theory of dance and her Gurus Shantha and V P Dhananjayan’s encouragement of compering dance shows and giving lectures on dance lead her to be invited to become a dance critic in some media houses. Acknowledged for her innovations in linking art and education, Devika was invited to become the director of education and culture at INTACH and the Madras Craft Foundation. Drawing on her years of experience in the field of art and education, Devika gained the confidence and support to launch the Aseema Trust. Her extensive international travel has exposed her to various cultures and forms of educations that also continuously enhance Aseema Trust projects.‘Always interested in history, I am also deeply interested in M K Gandhi and his innovative methods of reaching out to people,’ she signs off. Aseema Trust can be contacted over phone at 24464763.

tamil heritage group video

2009-09-29T08:02:00.003+05:30

Mr.Badri Sheshadri has put V.R.Devika's talk on traditional performing arts in education for Tamil heritage group on video see it in this link

http://thoughtsintamil.blogspot.com/2009/09/blog-post_28.html

Ganesha vinayaka chathurthi

2009-08-23T23:04:00.004+05:30

Every year I bring some clay and make my own Ganesha for Ganesha Chathurthi. This year I thought differently. I got Kasturi who works at Dakshinachitra to come home and make me a palmleaf ganesha. See the pictures. which show the Ganesha, Ganesha with Anjana and Raghav my neighbours who have adopted me as their third grandmother and Kasturi with her work.

Jaswant Singh's book

2009-08-21T09:11:00.002+05:30

I just went and bought Jaswant Singh's book on Jinnah. I would probably have ignored it or read it later if the BJP had not expelled him or banned the book. Every ban and controversy only helps a book. There are always many sides to a story. Several angles keep propping up every now and then and truth keeps getting revealed. truth, Gandhi said is dynamic so he never stuck to the same view after he got more information. Sometimes he went back to his earlier position on an issue after examining it in several positions sometimes changed his opinion. He always said take my latest comment as the currently held, it may change later when examined in a better light. So BJP is only helping Jaswant Singh. He must be laughing inside as he laments outside. They are only helping to keep him and his book in the news. He should be thanking the BJP for expelling him and banning the book.

why are we so sensistive?

2009-08-20T09:09:00.003+05:30

So now it is Shah Rukh Khan. Why cant we let people do their job and not scream from the roof tops that our egos are hurt when our heroes are searched or questioned in airports? Even Edward Kennedy was not recognised and he was searched. I came home after working with 200 children and with throat sore and switched on the tv for some news. Every Indian news channel had Shah Rukh Khan live talking about why they did not take his thumb print, why they did not do retina photo etc. While he was saying he did not mind being asked questions, a young reporter kept asking him how he felt being detained for one hour when the whole country was celebrating independence day! I am sure she has never asked how some girls are holed up in Kamathipura with no freedom of movement, how there is bonded labour in the country she is hurt that Shah Rukh Khan was denied freedom for one hour!!! she is bonded and has no freedom of intelligence poor girl! Go get some education girl. There was another who asked Salman Khan that he had said he was Kaminey in a film and to explain himself. She kept saying apne kaha.. It was a dialogue that he was made to speak girl. grow up. All it takes for the underworld is to make a film like Munnabhai for its own to be treated like the Mahatma. How sold we are to films as a nation. This is what shames me not airport searches and questionings.

article on anil srinivasan in the hindu

2009-08-12T21:47:00.000+05:30

The Hindu
Masgazine Sunday, May 24, 2009
Chords of passion
V.R. DEVIKA
On an one-point mission to bring the piano into mainstream Carnatic music, Anil Srinivasan talks about how he plans to do so.
Photo: R. Ragu Reaching out with music: Anil Srinivasan.
There are two pianos in Kalakshetra’s instruments room, both of which ought to be considered national treasures. One belonged to M.S. Subbulakshmi and the other to Rukmini Devi Arundale. MS is said to have first sung Kurai onrum illai and Hari tum haro to the accompaniment of the piano at her Kalki Gardens home. “It is an old Stein,” gushes young pianist Anil Srinivasan. “Rukmini Devi had a bigger one. Both are more than a century old. What trouble it must have been to get them to India from Europe.”
Leela Samson, director of Kalakshetra, is getting them restored and Anil hopes to play on them soon. “A musical instrument should never be kept idle,” says Leela Samson. “It should be played on.” Popular but alien
The piano is considered an alien instrument, though it has been in the popular psyche of Indians for decades. The movie industry brought the piano into the living room of middle class families as several popular songs (even with heavy classical bent) have used the piano. “Why do people call it an alien instrument?” wonders Anil Srinivasan who is on a mission to bring the piano into mainstream Carnatic idiom. “The violin has been so well adapted to Carnatic music. So why not the piano? A musical instrument does not have a nationality. In fact the santoor is the mother of the piano.”
Anil says the piano has been used by great musicians like Harikesanallur Muthiah Bhagavathar and Papanasam Sivan. There was a private performance of T. Brinda singing while being accompanied on the piano. In fact Maurice Delage (1879-1961), the French composer and pianist, was highly influenced by Indian classical music and even composed a Navaragamalika composition “Ramalinga Swami Arulpa” with Coimbatore Thayi, a famous Devadasi singer. He did this with a “prepared piano” (the score specifies that a piece of cardboard be placed under the strings of the B-flat in the second line of the bass clef to dampen the sound, imitating the sound of an Indian drum.)
“A musician in love with music; writer in love with writing; teacher in love with teaching; consultant in love with consulting”: Anil Srinivasan is talking about himself. Passion is this young man’s most visible trait. After an MBA and Ph.D. in Management from Columbia University in New York, Anil decided to return to Chennai to get into the Carnatic music milieu in its headquarters. “This is my one-point agenda,” he says with emphasis.
That brings memories of a magical evening flooding back. The main hall of J. Krishnamurthy Foundation was filled to capacity. The crowd had spilled over to the corridors; people were even sitting on the staircase. “Gardens in The Rains” was a unique programme featuring piano and violin in Carnatic music. Subtle lighting focused on the violinist Lalgudi G.J.R.Krishnan who sat separately from Purushottam who played the kanjira.
Netizens are still speaking about that evening. “For people standing outside, the breeze complemented the music beautifully. It was almost as if nature lent a hand to the evening,” says one blogger. Another comments, “The pieces were well chosen in ragas that allowed the use of flat notes. I thought Krishnan played brilliantly, his saramathi alapana was just exquisite ... Anil provided amazing support, amrithavarshini sounds nice in a piano! He also played a flash of vasantha during amrithavarshini, which was a nice contrast. Purusotham (on the kanjira) joined in at the start of amrithavarshini and provided good support. The mand tillana (a masterpiece of Lalgudi G.Jayaraman seemed even grander in this form. A refreshing attempt; hopefully there will be more!”Musical experiments
Anil begins to explain. “It was a celebration of two instruments originally from Italy and especially in Carnatic music. The Krishnamurthy Foundation concert was very special as it was an alumnus of the KFI school who first planted the idea of collaborative concerts with Carnatic vocalists and instrumentalists,” says Anil. In New York, while Anil was doing his Ph.D. in management, he played the piano as his friend C.P. Sanjay sang along in an informal gathering. That sowed the ground for further experiments. “The Krishnamurthy Foundation concert also happened in the music season and that is very special for a musician.”
Lalgudi GJR Krishnan and Anil Srinivasan played again at Dakshinachitra Heritage Centre but without percussion support. “The ambience made us feel like we were playing in a Roman ancient theatre. The breeze and the open sky above lent a remarkable charm to the concert and both Krishnan and I were more mature in our interaction here.”
“It was a very different aesthetic experience” says Krishnan. “What was best about this experience was that nothing was overdone. It was very serene and helped the audience to see the nuances of both instruments. We were both trying to complement each other and not imitate or follow one another. There are some portions where Anil could create using sheer chord. He does not disturb the raga like a filmi composition would by giving chord.”
“The experience was significant,” continues Krishnan “because Anil knows Carnatic music. So nothing jarred. After our first performance at Krishnamurthy Foundation we found ourselves going deeper into music at Dakshinachitra. We were able to explore much more…”
They agree that any experimental exploration cannot be done without studying both systems in the original. “Music is as good as the strength of the collaborators,” says Anil “One must be thorough about one’s music. One cannot just sit and jam. Carnatic music, though structured and based on lyrics, can touch even those who do not understand the words.”
This was amply demonstrated during a concert in Los Angeles where Anil Srinivasan performed with vocalist Sikkil Gurucharan. An almost totally non-Indian audience asked for encore. “It must have been the vibration of the words conveyed through music. Integrity is what matters most,” says Anil.

wonderful project

2009-08-08T08:17:00.000+05:30

This is Priya Nagesh. A wonderful discovery. She studied in PS senior secondary school where I taught in its first 9 years. Priya dropped out of college to work in alternatie education, non formal sector and is inspired by Mahatma Gandhi in his education and development from the grass root ideas. Self taught, she writes great reports and does web design etc. She married Krishnan who also studied in PSSS and was sent out as being too restless. Krishnan is a guy for organic farming and does whole sale marketting of organic produce, is a wizard at computers and has just become my student in spinning.

Priya Nagesh invited me to do a session as part of a two day nayi talim workshop that she organised in Madurai. It turned out to be an hour and half away from Madurai in a place called Sevayur where CCD has created a man made forest and helping villagers around to be gatherers of raw materials for herbal medicinal use. The place is wonderful and took my breath away by its sheer scale and the non formal way it works. Thousnads of women who are the main benificiaries of this programme came for lunch. great experience. was so happy to meet Meenakshi of Puvidham. She is just unbelievable.

temple entry

2009-07-30T08:55:00.000+05:30

As a self respecting Hindu, I feel hurt seeing the sign "Non Hindus not allowed beyond this point" in Hindu temples. Why and where did we get this non Hindus not allowed idea? My feeling is that it came from a British HR and CE officer who wanted to prevent neo converts to Christianity from going back to temples. Why why would we not allow Christians and Muslims into our temples? In Madurai for conference, I went to the Meenakshi temple with a bunch of college students who were volunteering at the conference. They all came up to the sanctum, took the sacred ash etc and gave me their names as we sat down for dinner at a restaurant later. Michael, John, George, Charles! They told me they have been visiting the temple since their childhood and have had no problems. They are devout Christians who attend Church every Sunday. They say only foreigners are prevented and purification done if a known Indian Christian has entered. Meera Jasmin, the Malayali actor had to pay a fine of Rs.10,000 for having entered a temple. Her problem was not being born a Christian but being a recognisable face. If a person wants to enter a temple, there is a purpose to it. Not all Hindus go into the temple to worship. If I can go into a temple so should Meera Jasmine. I have taken some foreigners into temples. These are people who study theology and why cant they enter the temple? Since in any case purification is performed when a celebrity non Hindu has entered a temple (when scores have been entering without the knowledge of others), entry should be opened and once a year major purification can be done for the satisfaction of purists (sic). My friend who is a major donor to a major temple is welcomed into the sanctum each time he goes there. Technically, he should not be allowed. He is a Jain and not a Hindu. If a Jain and Budhdhist can be allowed in, why can we not allow others? I have visited Churches in different parts of the world and Dargas. I have not become a less Hindu nor have the places been polluted by my presence.

National pride

2009-07-25T15:06:00.000+05:30

I am still getting circulated mail that NRIs are very hurt that former president Dr.Kalam was frisked by the Continental airlines security. Why? that an airline staff did their job? that too three months after the incidence? If Dr.Kalam had taken offence, he could have easily walked out and into an Air India counter. We are not angry that a woman walking with her husband in Mumbai after a new year party was molested and the arrested molesters were released because they belonged to a political party. We are not angry that girls sitting in a bar in broad day light which was perfectly legal thing to do were beaten up. But we are ashamed that Dr.Kalam was frisked and he did not mind. Many who have forwarded these mails asking for a ban on continental airlines are waiting for their green card or applied for citizenship in the US! and their pride is hurt that a former Indian president was a gentleman!

marriage

2009-07-24T08:21:00.001+05:30

Why is the woman the lesser in a marriage? She has to make all sacrifices. Particularly at a wedding it is the girl's family that has to make all arrangements, be on their toes to please the groom's people, take criticism with a cringing smile. Yet it is they who are losing a girl. The boy's family not just gets the girl but also a life long servant maid, a nurse, a cook, a sexual partner for their son and the mother of their dynasty. Why? Why? should the girl's family be subservient to the boy's family. A girl, working as a servant maid in a house, got married recently. The boy's family demanded a motor cycle, TV, fridge and 5 sovereigns of gold along with the girl. The girl's family moved heaven and earth trying to get all these. I am so angry that the girl did not put her foot down and say I dont need this marriage. Why cant the girls ask the man to go to hell? Is marriage so necessary?

Vasantha and me

2009-07-21T09:34:00.000+05:30

Vasantha with money and VRD with Gandhi. As the managing trustee of The Aseema trust, I do not charge a fee for the work I do. So when there was some money that was given to me as reimbursement, I decided to ask for a picture to be taken for the rare thing happening to me. Aseema's finance manager Vasantha Parthasharathy who tries to save money for the organisation and tries to restrict my spending is an angel and my man friday. I dont know what I would do without her.

Chidambaram Natyanjali

2009-07-20T14:39:00.000+05:30

The Chidambaram Natyanjali festival holds a special place in my heart. I used to be a part of SAHER (Society for Archaeological, Historical and Epigraphical Research) as a participant in their courses on these subjects and went to tours of monuments with Dr.Nagaswamy in the seventies. He was planning Natyanjali festival and I became a part of the organising group assisting him in Chennai and writing about it for the Indian Express in the first few years. I danced there too. See the first picture of me dancing in the first Natyanjali in 1981. I am wearing Shanthakka's costume. This picture was taken by dear friend Sunda who was with BBC and passed away in Australia. Mrs.sundaralingam, daughter Subhadra and Son in Law Sanchayan remain great friends.

In the picture below (which I scanned from Sruti Magazine), I am standing on the left watching Pt.Durgalal and Jayant Kastuar dance kathak inside the temple in 1984. Jayant had come to Chennai to assist his Guru Pt.Durgalal in his lec dem at the Natya kala conference. I interviewed Pt.Durgalal for Sruti Magazine and became a good friend of Jayant who was then doing his PhD at JNU. I wrote about Pt.Durgalal's performance at Chidambaram in The Indian Express. There is a lovely picture of Pt.Durgalal swirling taken by Gajendran who was then with Indian Express and later retired from The Hindu. Will scan that article and put in this. I had danced in the same space "Enneramum undan sannidhiyil irukka vendum iyya" sung by Prof.C.V.Chandrasekhar who spontaneously decided to sing for me.

Amazing story of a blind musician

2009-07-16T21:39:00.000+05:30

When Veeraswar Madri, who works to promote Hindustani classical music in Chennai asked me to be the chief guest and inaugurate a Hindustani music festival in Chennai slated to begin this evening, I had demurred. But I am very happy that he persisted and I agreed. He sent me a catalogue of an old festival to acquaint me with Ganayogi Panchakshara Gawai (the festival is in his memory), the great musician who was blind. I read that and then I searched the Internet for more information on the Gawai. What I got into was a journey into a most fascinating life. Born blind in a poor but musical family in Hanagal taluk (Bellary district) in 1863 and named Gadigayya, he and his elder brother Gurubasavayya were musically gifted children. Hanagal Kumaraswamy, a wealthy patron of music, once came to their village and heard the blind brothers sing. Impressed with their talents, he told their parents that he would train them. The older brother died a few months later due to Cholera. Panchakshara (a title given later for his extra ordinary talent by Gowrishankar Swamiji and became the formal name), however, went through formal musical training, both vocal and instrumental. He studied under competent musicians of his time - Sadigappa Gavai from Siralkoppa and Neelkantbua Mirajkar. He learnt Carnatic music in Mysore. He began a sanchari pathashala (travelling music school) in 1914. He moved from village to village through the districts of north Karnataka, sometimes on foot, or by bullock cart, bus or train. He would stop at a village or small town where he would gather musically talented children and teach them. He made a special effort to draw blind children to his school. After great difficlties, even after petioning Nalmadi Krishnaraja Wodeyar, the King of Mysore, he later established Veereshwara Punyashrama, a unique institution of Hindustani music in Gadag in north Karnataka, to use the power of classical music to bring about economic empowerment and social transformation. The modest ashram located in Gadag, has perhaps done more for the dissemination of classical Hindustani music than any institution of music in the country past or present. On a rough estimate, over 20,000 students, the majority of them from poor backgrounds and a sizable number of them visually impaired, have passed through the ashram since its formal inception in 1944. Pachakshara Gawai taught them music free and also fed and clothed them. For the majority of these students, music is a source of economic sustenance. Less quantifiable, but perhaps of greater long-term significance, is the role of these students as agents of cultural transmission. They have nurtured, preserved and transmitted the classical music tradition through their links with schools, colleges, homes and performance halls and made North Karnataka, the hub of Hindustani classical music. Panchakshra Gavai had met Gandhiji and wore only khadi. After his death, his disciple Putturaj Gavai, also blind became the one to lead the ashram which established ten institutions in Gadag . (A primary school, a high school, a pre-university college, an arts college, a teachers training college and a Braille school. Also the Pandit Panchakshara Gavai Music College.) Putturaj Gavai used to seek donations to his institution by getting himself weighed against coins given by poeple. He is said to have had more than a 1000 such Tulabharams. Every June, Gadag town commemorates Panchakshara Gawai in a festival of day and night Hindustani music which is attended by all in the town and surrounding places. Picture I took of panchakshara gavai is from the life size laminated picture that was kept on the stage while I went up to inaugurate and give my speech at the SGS Sabha. Balesh and party played Shehnai before that. Bhaskar, the violinist who accompanied the little children who sang a beautiful song in Kannada on Panchakshara gavai told me later that I was his teacher in his kinder garten. I am getting old I know but happily.

dhanushkodi

2009-07-14T08:34:00.000+05:30

Pictue shows the destroyed train track of Dhanushkodi on December 22., 1964 and how it is today. Visiting Dhanushkodi was a surreal experience. Vishalam, traditional to the core in her habits, modern to the core in her thinking, wanted to go to Rameshwaram prior to Kashi to do the rituals for her late husband. I decided to go along as I had been thinking it would be great to go to Rameshwaram. While she was busy with the rituals, I decided to to Dhanushkodi, the ghost town. Dhanushkodi, a once bustling town had been swept away by 20ft high tidal wave on a cyclonic night in 1964. It is eerie to see remnants of the town in the broken down buildings and mounds of sand where houses had stood. There is a railway track and a tar topped road and a broken wall of a major railway line. This was a land and sea connection to Srilanka before the 64 cyclone. People would get off at Dhanushkodi lands end and take the boat to talai mannar. The sea gushes in even today at night and tourists are taken around in jeeps on the sand when the sea receds in the mornings. It is a fantastic ride. this is supposed to be the place where rama worshipped Siva, a Linga made of sand by Sita. He is said to have broken the bridge he built on the advice of Vibhishana after Sita had been rescued. We also went to Kodandarama temple that had also been washed away and rebuilt only in the eighties. Ramayana comes alive in these sites.

2009-07-11T07:53:00.001+05:30

I did a session for the refresher course of the new recruits for English departments of Government Colleges all over Tamilnadu at the department of English, University of Madras on communication skills as learnt from ancient Indian performing arts texts, Mahatma Gandhi and his way of reaching out and the messages he gave the world with his bodily action, his writings, his silences, his fasts, his walks and his death seeing it through the eyes of a student of Indian dance and drama. Some of the participants have already booked me to go and give talks to the students in their colleges. I realised no picture had been taken. So I took these with my cell phone after the session. I had sat up the previous night and read up all I could on Gandhi - Periyar - Ambedkar to be able to answer questions that I thought might surely come up. But no one talked about it. Only a question on Kasturba came up. Then while I was packing my laptop to leave, one man came up and asked me why Gandhi died saying Hey Ram and not Om Namah Sivaya. I had no answer to that question. In fact Kalyanaraman who served in Gandhi's office at the time of Gandhi's assassination, says he did not say Hey Ram as the bullet killed him the second it hit him. Well it is his word against Abha and Manu's. Abha had held Gandhi as he died. She said he had said Hey Ram. My question is does it matter whether he said it or not?

at Bala vidya mandir school

2009-07-10T11:38:00.000+05:30

prize winners of the poster contest on "be the change you want to see" who were given prizes at the assembly by V.R.Devika.

New Project

2009-07-10T08:09:00.001+05:30

The Aseema Trust's new project "Using Media to create Awareness of Reproductive Health and HIV and AIDS among Adolescent Girls " has begun at Avvai Home. This project is to use the learnings of the earlier project "Using Traditional Performing Arts as empowering tool for vulnerable girls" which we conducted in partnership with world education 2006 - 09. A workshop on programme planning and development of logic model, programme planning matrix etc was conducted by Konda Reddy of World Education with our partner in this project Nalamdana. We later had a meeting with Nalamdana to plan and now have started the skills of Bharathanatyam dance training session at Avvai Home with the girls of TVR School (age 10 - 15) and the teacher trainees ( 18 years). A rewarding experience to talk to these wonderful girls. Since I was doing the workshop myself there are no pictures to go with this. I will make sure some one takes a picture next time.... Devika

videos

2009-07-05T16:10:00.000+05:30

Please view the spin a yarn project site http://spinayarn.aseematrust.org/
there is also a video of me spinning on the Charkha. view it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fD766bXwbg8
I found another you tube video which is interesting see
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiPLUVHSomc&feature=related
There is also one with Mahatma Gandhi himeself at the spinning wheel see
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zebmRYaAYhY&feature=related
Also see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnxRdJRcf3A&NR=1

rain in Chennai and Charkha

2009-07-04T18:55:00.000+05:30

It is raining in Chennai! WOW! unbelievable. It feels so good. Been lazy and not done any posts but today I uploaded a video on you tube. Spin a yarn charkha spinning tips. Just check it on you tube. Also working on a booklet on Charkha and Khadi fundamentals for children. I also realise I can update the Aseema trust website through this blog. So this is going to get more professional. It is thundering outside and I have a ac on. It can be so hot even with the rain in Chennai.

an article I wrote in Sruti magazine

2009-05-10T17:25:00.000+05:30

NEWS & NOTES
East meets West in a novel encounter
Eero Hameenniemi has created quite a wave in
the Western music scene with his introduction of
improvisation in Western orchestra compositions.
He was 16 years old when India became a part of his
consciousness in a little town in Finland. His school
text book had featured an open letter to the world’s
young by the great German music composer Karlheinz
Stockhousen. Hameenniemi, interested in music since
childhood, wrote to the composer about the impact his
open letter had on him. Stockhousen wrote back asking
the young man to read The Life Divine by Sri Aurobindo.
Young Hameenniemi searched everywhere for the book
and found it in the Helsinki open distance library. He
ordered it and had to return it in three weeks. He asked
his mother to permit him to miss school to finish the
book. She surprisingly agreed and he read the book from
start to finish in three weeks time. “I understood very
little at the time but it made me want to go to India.”
He was able to make it to India in his early thirties. He
first went to North India but found that he was attending
more South Indian concerts there. So he decided to go
to Madras in 1991 and as his practice, researched on the
people he had to meet. He made lifelong friendships. He
has worked with mridanga maestro Karaikudi Mani and
veena vidwan Karaikudi Subramaniam, has brought out
several CDs, arranged for exchange programmes between
Finnish and Indian musicians, and organised programmes
for Indian dancers and musicians in Finland. Chennai
is now a second home to him. He tries not to miss any
music season.
Hameenniemi became so enamoured of Carnatic music that
he began to write compositions for Western orchestras with
improvisation in them. “Improvisation is an efficient way of
internalising different aspects of one’s musicianship. At its
best improvisation can also offer a very intensive experience
to the listener.” He has been derided by some conservative
music lovers of Finland for bringing in this foreign element
into Western music. To counter this he always keeps a CD
or two of Carnatic music in his bag to offer to his critics.
Rain and Red Earth
Composition by Eero Hameenniemi premiered in the
Helsinki Festival
Eero Hameenniemi’s latest composition was premiered at
the Helsinki festival. The concert was held in the Huvilla –
an impressive main tent with a conical roof by the big pond
in a park, a tent large enough for more than a thousand
people, with wooden benches with elevations for seats.
There were separate tents for café, green rooms, meeting
rooms, rest rooms put up for the festival temporarily on
the grass in the park. The tent had an excellent sound
system. Large blue and pink georgette fabric as backdrop
was interestingly arranged with tiny light bulbs in them
– flickering like so many stars in the sky! As the soft
glow of lighting fell on the musicians, the sequins on the
kurtas of mridangist Pungkulam Subramaniam, Ghatam
Karthick and violinist Embar Kannan caught the light as
they played along.
Bombay Jayashri sang Mokshamu galada with her eyes
closed as my hosts TV journalist Tiina Maiija Lehtonen
and her journalist, trade unionist husband Erki Kupari
entered the tent that was almost full. The mostly
Finnish audience was fully engrossed in Jayashri’s
music. At the end of the piece she opened her eyes and
said: “This music that I am singing is a conversation
– a conversation with the creator. The tools of the
conversation are the groups of notes creating a path.”
Then she began her soft ragamalika Ragam-Tanam-
Pallavi making the audience sit up and watch her with
intensity – swaying to her ‘Guha Shanmukha’ she kept
repeating. Lalgudi Jayaraman’s tillana in Behag woke
them up from their reverie and they tapped their feet
to the rhythm. When Embar Kannan played the violin,
Tiina Maiija whispered to me that she could recognise
some Bach! Of course the tani avartanam of Ghatam
Karthick and Pungulam Subramaniam’s mridanga got
the maximum applause.
Jayashri, Hameenniemi, Subramaniam and Karthick
l SRUTI March 2009
NEWS & NOTES
Post-interval was the main event – the premiere of Eero
Hameenniemi’s new composition Rain and Red Earth
– five songs from the the Tamil classic poems Kuruntogai
with the Avanti Chamber orchestra of thirty musicians
with the Conductor maestro John Storgards and Minna
Pensola and Heikki Nikula leading on violin and bass
clarionet.
“I love the music of Bombay Jayashri and wanted to
create something for her and of course I love the poems
of ancient Tamil Sangam anthologies and wanted to
create a large work based on them in Western music,” said
Hameenniemi.
This concert is the culmination of twenty years of hard
work – of coming to Tamil Nadu, learning Tamil, getting
Dinatanthi (Tamil daily newspaper) in Finland every day,
and translating the Kuruntogai into Finnish. And of course
listening to Carnatic music over and over again, listening
to almost every singer on stage. Eero studied classical Tamil
with Professor E. Sundaramurti, former Vice Chancellor
of the Tanjavur Tamil University.
For this concert, Hämeenniemi chose five poems and
made a small love story out of them moving through
longing, disappointment and leading to a final affirmation
of love. The poems were sung in Tamil but Hämeenniemi’s
Finnish translations were printed in the programme
leaflet distributed to the audience. These translations
have already been published in one of Hämeenniemi’s
books. He has written five books in Finnish, dealing with
the music theory, history and philosophy, and culture of
South India.
Rain and Red Earth is a large song cycle of more than half
an hour duration. It had substantial improvisation sections
both for Bombay Jayashri and some of the Western
musicians. This is the first time a leading Carnatic singer
has sung with a Western orchestra.
Jayashri had changed her black and gold sari to crimson
and red for the second half and was seated in a chair in
front of the orchestra – presenting her classic Tamil profile
to the audience. As the orchestra played, Jayashri picked
up the notes and sang Mazhai mazhai vilayadum mazhai
(rain rain playful rain). As she sang, the rain beat on the
tent and water drops fell off the gable by the side of the
performing stage catching the light in rhythm as they fell.
The swara-s poured rain. The Western instruments and the
mridanga and ghata seemed to meet as long lost friends.
Karthick says he was delighted that a platform was created
for the two percussionists to sit right in front of such a
major orchestra and be the main movers. “It is the respect
given to the instrument that makes us so happy.”
Minna Pensola’s violin followed Jayashri’s voice like a
shadow and brought out all the love and pathos of the
poem and the music. “I see music as interaction and
dialogue. I write as a practical musician, and my ideas
are ultimately based on three decades of experience as a
practicing composer, performer and listener. They are,
however, supported by an intensive study of music history
and philosophy, as well as of the literature dealing with the
meeting of cultures,” Eero explained later.
“I cannot believe such an opportunity has come my way,”
said Bombay Jayashri. “It is a defining moment in my life
as a musician. There were three days for rehearsal and the
first two days were a challenge for me to understand the
conductor’s language. Minna Pensola is a great violinist.
She really inspired me.”
“I had this thought for a long time. I compose Western
music and I like the human voice. I like two or three
singers in the world and Bombay Jayashri is one of them,”
says Hameenniemi.
“I had read a few Sangam poems with Prof. Sundaramoorthy
and then began to read the collection systematically.
I decided to take poems that had some connection and
wove a story around them. They are romantic poems but
isolated and I wanted to give it a happy ending. To get
a happy ending we all know there should be a troubled
beginning. The longing and waiting of the girl transforms
into anger and then the realisation of the love within. The
Mazhai poem already has a rhythm in it and I used it and
then the Yayum yayum about relationships which had to be
slow with a touch of Kalyani and then the girl realises that
love is more important than transitory anger and that deep
connections cannot be broken. So I chose the Nilatinum
peride poem.
Bigger than earth certainly,
higher than the sky,
more unfathomable than the waters
is this love for this man
of the mountain slopes
where bees make rich honey
from the flowers of the kurinchi
that has such black stalks.
– Tevakulattar (Kuruntokai 3)
(translation A.K. Ramanujan)
10 l SRUTI March 2009
NEWS & NOTES
Then came the last one, Kamam kamam which is joyful
and humorous. The end was a delirious shout for joy and I
decided to do it in 17 beats dividing it into 10 and 7.”
Eero Hemeenniemi engaged the Avanti chamber
orchestra to produce this. Avanti is a premier chamber
orchestra of Helsinki founded by two world class
conductors. The orchestra does not employ musicians on
its rolls as is the practice with other orchestras but seeks
out and gives short term contracts to musicians on its
panel for a particular concert. “Avanti is well known for its
adventurous programmes in music and had a bold artistic
vision in its current director Kari Kriikku. He trusted me
when I took the project to him and took it on. In the four
days of rehearsal, they were pushed to the limits and not
one musician complained,” says Hameenniemi. “For this
concert I specially asked for Minna Pensola and three
double basses one special with extra string and one special
trumpet player. The director of Avanti took the gamble.
This was a young orchestra.” The camaraderie between the
Finnish and Indian musicians was very palpable. Backstage
after the concert, Embar Kannan just took the viola of a
Finnish musician and began playing an Indian raga on it.
The Finnish man was delighted and was highly pleased.
The special artist in the concert was the sound man.
“He can be called our mike artist” says Hameenniemi.
He attended every rehearsal, took special pains to listen
to the way Jayashri sings and Pungulam Subramaniam’s
mridanga and S. Karthick’s ghata work and brought out
the best in each of them.” The concert was broadcast live
by the Finnish Radio YLE.
While the audience reaction to the concert was positive, the
two newspaper reviews were interesting. The culture critic
of the Swedish Newspaper Hufcudstadsbladet thought the
whole project was ingenious but the Helsingen Sanomat
critic attacked it finding the space moderate for such a
concert and deriding Eero Hameenniemi for his remarks
on Western concerts. “Well, I have talked in print about
the nature of the concert as a social event that is seen very
differently in India and in the West. This is one of the
reasons for the differences in concert etiquette. In many
respects an Indian concert resembles very much a concert
in the West some two-three centuries ago. Performers can
shape musical compositions in radical ways. This was the
practice in the West during the Baroque era, and it is still
an important aspect of music making in India.”
Bombay Jayashri says simply, “I believe Helsinki and Eero
Hemeenniemi’s Rain and Red Earth, is my parents/guru-s
blessings and god’s gift to me. It gave me the opportunity
to bring together all my training over the years in different
systems and the trust my teachers had placed in me and
my love for world music and quest for dialogue. And with
the Kuruntogai which is close to my heart.”
V.R. DEVIKA

an article

2009-02-04T23:00:00.000+05:30

Online edition of India's National NewspaperTuesday, Feb 03, 2009
http://www.hindu.com/yw/2009/02/03/stories/2009020350101100.htm
Young World
When dreams are realised
V.R. DEVIKA
The message and philosophy of Gandhiji and Martin Luther King have an eternal quality. January 30, the death anniversary of Gandhiji ia celebrated as Sarvodaya Day.
King emphasised that the struggle of the black people for their rights and dignity must remain non violent.
King: Drew inspiration from Mahatma Gandhi
As Barack Obama became the first Black man to live in the White House, “I have a dream…” the speech made by Dr. Martin Luther King at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963 was being shown on American TV channels.
King’s delivery of the speech on August 28, 1963, from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the march on Washington for jobs and freedom was a defining moment of the American Civil Rights Movement. Delivered to over 250,000 civil rights supporters, the speech is often considered to be one of the greatest and most notable speeches in history and was ranked the top American speech of the 20th century.
Inspiration
This picture shows Dr. King passionately delivering the speech.
Look again, and you will see that the people standing around him are wearing white Gandhi caps!
The video showed many in the audience were wearing it too. How did that happen?
In the speech, Dr. King emphasised that the struggle of the black people for their rights and dignity must remain non-violent. He drew his inspiration from Mahatma Gandhi.
Both M.K.Gandhi and Martin Luther King died at the hands of assassins, but their message and their philosophy have an eternal quality.
King was fatally shot April 4, 1968, on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel, now on the site of the Civil Rights Museum.
Gandhiji was killed January 30, 1948, in New Delhi at Birla House, now the Gandhi Smrithi Museum housing a new multi-media exhibit called “Eternal Gandhi” using the power of information technology.

Amala udayshankar and me

2009-02-01T11:58:00.000+05:30

another birthday

2009-02-01T11:23:00.000+05:30

I turned 55 on 30th January. Had an extremely busy day with addressing a gethering of students at Vidyodaya school and being a guest of honour with Sarojini Varadappan, the venerable social worker at Womens' volunatry services and then at Asan Memorial school with our poster and spinning contest and the quiz. Combining too many things is always a problem so naturally the quiz got started late. Young Arvind and his team of class 11 of Asan memorial school did such a great job conducting the quiz but I just had to stop him before he concluded as the cyclists on a rally from 9 am entered the hall. The Gandhi Study circle initiative of visiting different schools and culminating at Asan were on time but we were not. So we had to conclude before the quiz was over. Arvind was naturally very upset. Bright young man who knows his mind and is very strict in his work will go a long way. What was heart warming was the way young children braved the spinning on the charkha competition. They sat with determination in their faces and worked on the Charkha. The Charkha looks simple but requires constant monitoring and a knack to work. Mahatma gandhi's great grandson (Ramdas's daughter's son) Shrikrishna Kulkarni joined us on the occassion.

Today I see my article on Amala Udayshankar in The Hindu. While I have been getting so many calls and sms congrajulating me on the article, I do miss the edited out portions. The newspaper has to necessarily cut out some text for space and clarity. Here is the link and the original article.

http://www.hindu.com/mag/2009/02/01/stories/2009020150170500.htm

“I am not a dancer. My life is a dance” says Amala Uday Shankar. She had just come out of K.J.Hospital in Chennai where she addressed little children who had undergone free heart surgeries in a project called “Needy little hearts”. She talked about belief in God and that it is God that sends both misery and joy to life..

90 years old, Amala Shankar is bursting with ideas for future. She plans to visit Almora located on a ridge at the southern edge of the Kumaon Hills of the Himalaya range in the summer and says if the dance centre started there by her late husband, the legendary dancer Uday Shankar is revived, she would be happy to go teach his dance style there every summer. She recalls with affection a letter written in Bengali to her by Gopalakrishna Gandhi, the governor of West Bengal encouraging her to do. “He even signed it in Bengali” she says with a smile. Not just that “I have to write a book to dispell the many misunderstandings of the last days of Uday Shankar” she says with passion. Awe struck, I ask her to tell me about her life with Uday Shankar and dance.

“ I met him in Paris” says Amala, with stars in her eyes. She was eleven and a half in 1931. Her father had gone to Paris for the mega fair “Exposition Coloniale” and they had heard of some Indian artists who were performing there. “I was born in a small village now in Bangladesh”, says Amala. Her father, Akhoy Kumar Nandy, a nationalist following Aurobindo, had founded Economy Jewellery works and was a writer pubising a magazine called Matrimandir. He had been very keen that his children should grow up loving nature and the earth of the village and so his children did all their study in observing nature in the village. It was so beautiful in the village that the girls went to the river to wash hands after every meal. “I would go to the river to get water. As I walked back with the pot on my waist (they wore saris of about three meters long reaching down just below the knee), the wet sari would make a rhythmical noise and I thought I was dancing” says Amala. “Life in the village was beautiful. There was a custom of taking some one else as a mother for one year irrespective of caste. This lady would come and comb our hair, tell stories and we created a bond and called her ma.”

Amala knew no French or English when she accoponied her father to Paris. As she walked on the street people gazed at her and exclaimed in French that she was beautiful. “I was shocked as my mother always lamented that I was too dark and wondered which Kartikerya was doing Tapas to get me.”

In a shop in the exhibition, she saw a group of Indian boys. “They were all very handsome” she says in a whisper and very well dressed. The older of them introduced himself as Uday Shankar and invited her home. He told her that he had a little brother ( Ravi Shankar ) she might like to play with at home and their mother would give a good meal. When she went to their house with her father, Amala saw Uday Shankar wearing a Khadi kurta, pyjama and playing basket ball with his brothers. His mother Hemangini Devi saw the girl wearing a frock, took her in and dressed her up in a sari lending her own. “Soon she took me in as a daughter, taught me cooking and made me play with the young Ravi Shankar” says Amala.

“I was mesmerised when I saw Uday Shankar’s dance show. Until then I had only seen Jatra in the village . The Gandharva dance, the costumes and the musical instruments took me to another world” Amala began to spend more and more time in Uday Shankar’s house playing with Ravi Shankar. One day Uday Shankar asked her to do a movement prnouncing the syllable Dhin taki ta ta. He asked her father permission to take her along with them on a tour. Uday Shankar’s mother assured the reluctant father of Amala that she would be with her like a daughter. It was a gruelling tour of eight months with performances in two hundred cities of eighteen countries of Europe seventy five of them in Germany alone. People like Romain Rolland, Rabindranath Tagore were part of the audience. Amala kept her word to her father who insisted that she write a detailed diary on every single day of the tour. “ I had no idea of Uday Shankar’s major contribution to Indian dance then. I only saw how girls loved him and his magnetic personality. But he was never cheap..” When Amala’s father returned to India, Uday Shankar’s mother requested him to let Amala stay behind in Paris and brought her back to India later.

Father asked her to convert her diary pages into a book even as she joined the grade seven in school and was soon given a double promotion to class nine. He father encouraged her to take up matriculation examination even as she was in the ninth grade. Mother’s worry was over the non possibility of an early marriage because of Amala’s dark complexion. Her younger sister had been married already. “Which Kartikeya is doing tapas for you”was mother’s constant refrain.

In 1935 Uday Shankar brought his troupe to Calcutta. Amala stayed with his mother to attend the show. “I was shocked that the production was called Kartikeya and as soon as Uday Shankar entered as Kartikeya, I knew this was the man for me and that I was totally in love. I knew he would never marry and that there were several well qualified and rich women in love with him.”

Uday Shankar invited Amala to the Almora dance centre that he had started but her father insisted on her finishing writing the book first. Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore was visiting a friend of her father and they had invited her to come and be there. Gurudev asked her to dance and then invited her to Santiniketan. “I realised Gurudev was a great man when people excaliemd and gazed at him as I travelled with him in the car”. But her father was still very reluctant to let her be a dancer. Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose who saw her dance in a friend’s house asked her father to give word to him that Amala would be allowed to go to Almora for a year. That sealed her fate. She went there absolutely in love. “Uday Shankar tested me in every way possible. It was like as if he was cutting me like a vegetable. I was tested to the limits as a dancer for my skills, as a scholar for my knowledge of mythology and literature and as a woman for the limits of my jealosy and for my cooking skills etc.”

“ In 1939, we were in Madras on a dance tour, December 7th was the eve of Uday Shankar’s birthday. I had retired to my room after the cake cutting and party, while I was fast asleep, there was a knock on the door. It was Uday Shankar. I wondered if I had done something wrong. He came in and sat on a chair and said he had decided to get married. I said with a sigh very good. He asked me if I did not want to know the name of the girl. And he said it is Amala and as I began to cry, he said I had to keep that a secret. We kept it a secret and people came to know only in 1941. All through while we danced on the stage we would look at each other and smile. Our marriage happened after the marriage of Simkie, Zohra Segal and Beatrice.”

“Life was heaven with all its ups and downs. We lived in Madras for some time (They gifted their house on Boag road to the Communist Party of India). Our son was born on his father’s birthday on December 8th just as Uday Shankar had predicted. Mamta came soon after and she became the darling of her father. While we toured we met some of the greatest persons of the time.”

In 1960, Amala received an invitation from a summer school in Colorado in the US to teach Uday Shankar style of dance. The school was on a mountain and like a peaceful Ashram. Amala was inspired to start a school in Calcutta. The Uday Shankar India Culture Centre in Almora was by then closed. The West Bengal government gave space in Rabindra Sarovar. The very fist class was taken by Uday Shankar. “I began to teach while Uday Shankar produced Chandalika without me. He began to lose confidence. Then he did Shankarscope and fell for a girl in his troupe. We began to live seperately and some four or five people around him began to take advantage of him. But Mamta (daughter) and I were by his bed side for the last three days of his life and he put out his hand, cradled my face on his chest and thanked me for everything. It was a scene just like a dream that I had described to Mamta and every one else earlier.” Mamata was startled at the similarity and began to cry.

“I have seen many ups and downs in my life and I also see people giving me a lot of respect as I walk on the street in Kolkatta some come and touch my feet. What I am getting now is what Uday Shankar deserved. Our life together was not just the life of two people but revolved around forty years of rennaissance of Indian dance. In 1981, I got a letter written to me by my father in 1951. I am glad it took that long for the letter to reach me or else what was written in it would have left me with a swollen head.”

Amala Shankar recalls an occasion when she was invited to give the Tagore lecture by the Bengali association in New York city. Father had advised her not to prepare too much but to talk spontaneously what came naturally. “As I stood in front of the gathering that had some of most well known faces of the time, I became tongue tied. Not a word came out of my mouth for a few minutes. I felt like I was wrapped up like a mummy from head to toe and a gaint hand was pusing me into water. Just at the time my face was touching water, I said aloud, You are trying me are you? I will get through and come up for air. And I did. The talk became quite a hit. My life has always been like that and will always be like that.” Amala Shankar says with conviction.

“Ninety is not old is it?”

by

V.R.Devika

taiwan

2008-06-14T07:26:00.000+05:30

Taiwan trip was great. It was a meeting of World Creativity Summit in Taipei. Taipei was a major surprise for me. So clean and so prosperous and more importantly, so vegetarian! I reached on 4th afternoon, had a two hour sleep in the hotel, went out for a walk, bought some bread and milk from a department store and had that in the night. The next day at the conference they had some lunch boxes marked vegetarian. they even keep it separately. It was the most delicious vegetarian food I have eaten other than Indian food. Also the beautiful presentation of it all. Herbs twisted, tofu like a flower etc and the most exquisitely delicate taste. I am told they are many vegetarians there who do not even take garlic and onion and keep off tamasic food. The oil is also vegetable oil. Some even keep ekadasi fast twice a month. Apart from great interactions in the conference, visit to the 101 tall tower and the ancient treasures museum were great. I had nausea when they took us to the night market where live things were being offered on the street but this vegetarian stuff was a major surprise. It is easily available all over . Brown rice with sesame and ground nut in delicate spice steamed in leaf packets, salad with many different herbs, soups ,some vegetable, nuts and dry noodle combination which was bhelpuri like, a rasagolla like thing with lotus inside, at the end came a soup that tasted absolutely wonderful. It had camphor like smell. They said it was medicinal to help in digestion and to calm one down Absolutely a great pleasant surprise. there is a large green fruit that tastes just like our guava but is much much larger and does not have the smell. The other vegetarian with me was surprisingly, Eldad from Isreal. He is mostly vegetarian and completely avoids chicken. He also ordered veg food everywhere and it was great. He is such a lovely gentle soul.

On the first day when I came down to the breakfast room, every one came up to me and said my costume was just beautiful. The hotel had all the summit delegates from 23 countries (I was the only Indian) and some business and Holiday makers. Every one told me my Sari was beautiful. It was to repeat all five days. I revel in showing off my saris in these conferences. That reminds me of the customs at Taipei airport when I came through the green channel, the X Ray guy told me he had to open my box as it showed some long metallic object but very light. I saw the screen and told him it was all the gold in the silk sari borders. He smiled and said the saris are so beautiful and sent me out without opening the box. As I have said many times before, I wear my saris as a tribute to the weaver. I had seen a loom being installed some thirty years ago and after watching that engineering and art marvel, I decided I would only wear handloom and wear saris most of the time. My saris are my statement when I travel around and they are really a performance. I show them off with great affection.

In the bus to the conference, Liora Bresler asked me if she could sit next to me. She kept telling me how India touched her heart when she came as the wife when her electronic engineer husband had come for a conference in Chennai and had seen Mamallapuram etc. She said she had travelled in different countries but nothing had touched her as India has. In the short time we became very close to each other. She is a professor in a university in Champagne near Chicago. I loved her.

too many things to talk about.

being a critic

2008-06-02T21:14:00.000+05:30

Being a critic has its problems. Especially when you know the artists. Do you say what you feel or do you want to stay friends. It is the eternal question. I have had many who have taken offence to what I have written and either stopped talking to me or become extremely nice. I guess it is an occupational hazard.

2008-06-01T11:46:00.000+05:30

2008-05-28T07:52:00.000+05:30

We had a most gracious group of faculty members from Wooster College visiting Kalakshetra on 26th. I had the honour of organising the visit. Leela Samson, the director of Kalakashetra was her most gracious self and explained the history and technique of Kalakshetra style of dancing with Haripadman and Sarita demonstrating in the most beautiful surroundings of Kalakshetra in the prayer hall. Then we went to Madras Institute for Development Studies (MIDS) to listen to Dr.A.R.Venkatachalapathy, wrap up most beautifully, the background history of political movement in Tamilnadu. Vijay Shankar, the associate editor of Frontline, a communist party sympathiser, took the opposite line wanting to have a word duel with Communist party and the Dravidian movement which must have certainly gone above the heads of the visiting academics as for them Ramakrishna Hegde or Devegowda are just names. For me and the aseema team of Vasantha and Aswini however , it was very interesting.

The most poignant moment for me on 26th May was Kumudha sitting there calmly as Dr.Aiswarya Rao narrated how 8 years ago, Kumudha had been detected to have HIV virus in her blood just before she gave birth to her baby. No doctor was willing to touch her and no one wanted to help her in her delivery. She was asked to cut her own umbelical cord and take her own placenta, go outside the hospital, dig a hole in the ground and bury it. This was because even the doctors had very little awareness then that HIV virus is not infectious and that it need not result in the carrier getting AIDS. She does not know how she got the virus. It could be through her husband who may have had other sexual partners or through some infected syringe. But in our society, the man having several partners before and after marriage is condoned but the woman is blamed for this. Sex is a taboo subject. So women are subjected to all kinds of abuse and when discovered, only the woman is blamed. The media is talking about character assassination of Arushi, the young girl who was murdered and her servant. What did you expect? leaving a young teenager and her 45 year old servant together in a large house? Expected them to do nothing? His having been married and having children and being respectable has nothing to do with his child sexual abuse. How can this be related to Arushi's character? The great traditionalists and conservatives of this country say dont talk about sex in school. . This lack of space for talking about sex is what leads to child sexual abuse. The perpetrator knows the girl will not be able to talk about it and is she does, only she will be blamed. Traditionalists say sex education has no place in our tradition. Traditionally, teenagers were already married in our society. Today's teenager is bombarded with sexual imagery and sexuality from all sides in all media, has to deal with her / his desire, changes in the body, yet remain silent on the issue. This is what leads to experimentation and the fear of not talking about it when abused by an elder relative. Ashraya, our sister organisation, dealing with child sexual abuse, gets hundreds of letters from school girls in all social categories talking about sex abuse from an elder relative which she can not talk about in the family. This also leads to HIV virus transmission.

heat

2008-05-25T10:58:00.000+05:30

Chennai is sizzling. Even sitting under the fan is getting difficult. Should one save on energy and not switch on the AC? the dilemma is ever on. I had a group of 12 faculty members from Woosteer College in Ohio coming in from Delhi yesterday. Doing the Dakshinachitra round was in totally drenched bodies who had flown in from Delhi in the morning and had come in to Dakshinachitra at 3 pm. 3 to 5 pm is the worst time to be in the sun. They told me Delhi was having rains and was quite cool. But my talk on Gandhi got them all so responsive that Gandhi the man and myth fascinates me more. I get goose pimples as I show the visuals I have on my topic "Creating a Sahridaya - Gandhi's communication - issues and perspectives" I am applying the performance theories of Natyashastra to Gandhi's modes of communication through Angika (bodily communication), Vachika (communication through words and music), Aaharya ( through costume, symbols and decor) Satwika ( through inner understanding). I am more than happy that a group of tired, sweating senior American academics were so very responsive to Gandhi. Gandhi goes on and on. Godse did the greatest service to Gandhi by killing him the way he did at the right time and right place. He made sure Gandhi lives on forever.

view from the wing -3

2007-10-28T09:18:00.000+05:30

I am very surprised that there is even a debate on sex education in schools. If they can be taught H2O is water, they should be taught what sex is all about. We are a billion and more and children should know what has caused it. One man says children are driven to crime when they learn about sex. Wonder how this man was born? It is also very surprising that it is the religious zealots who are opposed to sex education. Looks like they have never visited Hindu temples which were the place where everyone congregated including children and were witness to visual depiction of sex. All our literature all our sacred hymns talk about sex not just for procreation but also for devotion. Wonder if they have ever meaning of Soundhrya Lahari or Venkatesha Suprabhatham or Andal's verses.

I have taken this from the description of Pavan Varma's book "The literature of India, both religious and secular, is full of sexual allusions, sexual symbolisms and passages of such frank eroticism the likes of which are not to be found elsewhere in world literature. Sections of ancient texts like the Vedas, the Upanishads, the epics (the Mahabharata and the Ramayana), the Brahmanas, the Puranas and devotional hymns are studded with graphic sexual acts which were seen as integrated elements of human existence. Kalidasa and Jayadeva stand out a exemplars of this genre. It was basically the evangelical fervour of the Victorian era that imposed severe strictures on the so-called heathen amorous degradation and sought to cleanse the Indian people by propagating Western morality and values. And the Victorian hangover still persists. Think of erotic literature from India and what immediately comes to mind is Vatsyayana’s Kamasutra. This was indeed not the first study in erotology nor was it the last. Beginning with the Rg Veda (written some 5000 years ago) right up to the seventeenth century, Indian literature is marked by diverse genres replete with unabashed eroticism in which love, lust and life are explored to their fullest extent. Today, the philosophical acceptance of desire and the erotic sentiment has been asphyxiated by a hypocritical morality that has for much too long equated sex with sin and desire with guilt." Very right

view from the wing - 2

2007-10-21T14:47:00.000+05:30

It was a great compliment when a teacher from PSBB Millennium called me on October 4th. She said her daughter was studying in class 3 at Bala vidya mandir and she had attended the demonstration of charkha spinning at her school. "She was very thrilled with that and has not stopped talking about it and the stories of Gandhi that you told could you please come to our school tomorrow? can there be a better compliment than this?

I have never said thank you enough for getting a person like Vasantha parathasharathy to work with me. She is sincerity personified, hardworking and is full of joy and humour. We have a great time because we are opposites in taste and life style. I can not than enough that she came along when I needed some one most. I think we are a very good team. Ashwini Kasi who has come in now has also grown into the job and is enjoying herself. What more can one ask for?

vrd on the net

2007-10-18T11:36:00.000+05:30

http://www.learningnet-india.org/lni/data/groups/tamilnadu/aseema/index.php

http://www.prakritifoundation.com/

http://www.kutcheribuzz.com/features/column/dancing.asp

http://www.dakshinachitra.net/scripts/r_folkperform.asp

http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/fr/2002/12/06/stories/2002120601170500.htm

http://www.goethe.de/ins/in/che/kue/tanz/en2025157.htm

http://www.parampara.nl/html/prod02r4.htm

http://volunteers.vibha.org/share/data/74/application-aseema.doc

http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/mp/2002/07/04/stories/2002070400340200.htm

http://neenaprasad.com/VRDevika.html

http://www.hinduwisdom.info/articles_hinduism/32.htm

http://www.self-knowledge.in/article58.asp

http://www.managementparadise.com/forums/showthread.php?p=51235

http://www.tulikabooks.com/2003seminar.htm

http://www.worldcreativitysummit.org/participants_speakers_DEVIKA.htm

http://www.indiatogether.org/opinions/lalisri/ls0802.htm

view from the wing -1

2007-10-17T14:34:00.000+05:30

We have had a very gratifying time celebrating Gandhi Jayanthi on 2nd October. Mrs.Rajalakshmi of Avvai Home where we have been working on art and education projects asked me if we could do some workshop during the quarterly holidays for the school September 23rd through October 2nd with the core group of girls at the hostel who had nowhere to go. I told her I would be happy to do a spinning on the Charkha workshop with the girls so they can produce khadi yarn that can be used as garlands for school. I remembered Leela Samson, Director, Kalakshetra telling me that she wanted students of Kalakshetra to be involved in outreach programmes. So I decided that along with the spinning workshop we could have a dance workshop with students of Kalakshetra choreographing to a song that addressed Charkha sung by D.K.Pattammal in the pre independence days. I hunted for the song and finally Vasantha was able to track down a teacher Mrs.Padma who had hummed it while I had done a workshop for teachers at Akshara Vidyapeetha of Swami Suddhananda. We went to her house and recorded the song, brought it to Kalakshetra principal Mrs.Lalitha Rukmini who refined it, added some swaras to it and gave some Jathis. This was taught to kalakshetra students who came to Avvai Home everyday and lovingly taught the girls. They also lent their dance practice saris, lovingly did the costumes and decoration for the girls combing their hair, keeping flowers etc. It really was a beautiful collaboration. Leela Samson was gracious to a very great extant and really opened up Kalakshetra.

In the meanwhile, Sangeeta Isvaran one of our most intelligent and creative dancers offered to do a dance drama production with the younger girls. She did a workshop with them asking to tell stories of things that disturbed them, discussed peace and non violence and evolved a most interesting production with the students. Not only was it fun and joyful for the girls but also very educative and challenging. She had the girls work on a pinnal with saris.

On October 2nd, I decided to do demonstration of spinning at the Fabindia store in Besant Nagar, girls of Avvai Home hostel dressed themselves beautifully in skirt and dhavani and did the demonstration and taught it to the many young and old who came to try their hands at the spinning. The yarn spun by the girls were given as garlands to Justice Mohan and Leela Samson.

The programme at Kalakshetra started at 6 pm with the lighting of the lamp and speeches by Justice Mohan who had been asked to be the chief guest by Sarvodaya International under whose aegies we were doing the programme. The programme by the girls and the music that followed by kalakshetra were inspiring and naturally there were congrajulations galore from everyone who appreciated the spirit of the progrmame.

take two in Kerala Hindu

2007-08-06T18:10:00.000+05:30

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jul 02, 2007
Metro Plus Kochi

Feminism, eroticism in dance

Priyadarshini Govind and V.R. Devika on dance and their offbeat careers

Photo: H. Vibhu

IN RHYTHM Bharatanatyam dancer Priyadarshini Govind, left, and art critic V. R. Devika

Rehearsals for an upcoming play had left leading Bharatanatyam exponent Priyadarshini Govind with a sore throat. But when she sat down for a Take Two with noted art critic, writer and researcher V. R. Devika she was, like her dance, most eloquent. Huddled in a corner of the Kerala Fine Arts Hall, Kochi, with people walking around, children running along the corridor nearby, loud instrumental music wafting across, they opened their mind on dance and a whole variety of other subjects, while

K. PRADEEP listened in.

Devika: Priya, I’m sure you’ll remember. It was in 1981 when we got together for a production based on a poem by A. K. Ramanujan. We called it ‘Interior Landscape,’ directed by Ranvir Shah and choreographed by m e. Since then you have certainly come a long way to become one of the top ranked Bharatanatyam dancers in the country, gracing some of the most prestigious venues in the world. How do you feel?

Priya: Yes, Devika, it has been a long way. Dance and theatre always interested me. Then came the decision to take it up as a career. Since then it has been a eventful journey. And you Devika? You are one who never lets a chance slip b y. Your eye takes in everything in art and life.

Devika: Right from the beginning my outlook towards dance was different. Even when I began learning dance I knew that there was more to it than just performance on a stage with jewels on. Performance was not everything. I looked at dan ce, maybe, like how a school teacher that I was then, would look at it. Gradually I was devising a method of teaching through Bharatanatyam….

Priya: Thinking on your feet?

Devika: Something like that. I was more into organising, composing. Dance became a source of constant learning. Looking back, I think my decision of not turning into a dancer was good. I began using dance for social work, to build brid ges between the rural and urban sections of the society. It provided a fantastic canvas for me. I realised that there is no great difference between the folk and classical dance forms. The multiplicity, diversity of India must be celebrated. Looking at your dance Priya, I have been impressed by your emotive exposition of the ‘padams.’ Tell me something about ‘abhinaya,’ which is your forte.

Priya: Like most of Kalanidhimami’s (Kalanidhi Narayanan) students I didn’t think much about the meaning of the ‘padams’ when I started out. For me it was the performance and my ‘guru’ that made danc e so enthralling. I was literally drawn completely by its magic. It opened up a new world of characters.

Devika: The interesting thing about dance is that it is different to you at various phases of your life, or at different ages. Learning a ‘varnam’ at age 24, like any feminist, made me angry. The thought was how a woman cou ld pine away for a man like this….’I rejected the whole idea then for I did not want to wait for a man like this. Later, I saw this woman when I was forty. It then meant so much for me. There was sympathy for the woman, I could understand her better. There was so much more depth in the lines of the poet. Dance can really educate you.

Priya: This is what you have picked up from experience. When we were taught, the stress was to put oneself in the position of the characters presented. It cannot be a personal viewpoint. We were taught to visualise what the poet must h ave imagined. I was fortunate to have a teacher who had gone through the whole gamut of life’s experiences but never got herself involved in the nitty-gritty of a dancer’s life. She always said that an artist should be like a lotus leaf on which the water will never stick on.

Now Devika, there are three things that I would like to ask you. What is your idea of feminism? Why is it that in dance and poetry, the focus is always on emotion and women? And finally what is your take on eroticism in form and lyric?

Devika: Feminism to me is the choices a woman can make. My mother, for instance, was a feminist. Not the radical kind but one who made my father feel that he was the most important person in the family but still managed to have her way . Feminism is that freedom to be able to realise one’s potential. The focus is mostly on women and emotion perhaps because the majority of the poets were men. Eroticism can be traced to the Devadasis for whom it was part of the profession. In Hinduism, Kama is part of the Purusharthas and even of worship. Madhura Bhakti is erotic feeling for the deity. It is there in the temples, with the bells, fragrance, colour, and the sculptures. It is an integral part of human life. Sensuality is often misinterpreted. Everything depends on how all this is interpreted by the beholder. In dance the audience become the interpreters.

Priya: Devika, how do you connect Gandhian studies to dance? Has Gandhi always been part of your conscience or was it an accident?

Devika: I think that it was always there. Becoming a school teacher was a fluke and then I became interested in Gandhi’s idea of basic education. He became relevant again when I went into rural performing arts. I strongly believe that he remains the only original. He certainly had his faults, his decision-making might have been foolhardy at times, but his sincerity can never be questioned.

Priya: But is Gandhi relevant even today? And dance?

Devika: He is still relevant. Take the case of sanitation, decentralisation, village industries….

Priya: But in the present political context….

Devika: He would have been killed for his honesty. Dance is all about communication. And Gandhi used all the tools, angika, vaachika, to connect to the remote corners of this vast country. Priya, life seems to have come a whole circle. You are now doing a play once again.

Priya: Yes. The play is called ‘Flame of the Forest,’ which is inspired by Kalki Krishnamurti’s epic novel, ‘Sivakamiyin Sapatham,’ the sculptures of Mamallapuram and Mahendra Pallavi’s ‘Mattav ilasa.’ In the play written and directed by Gowri Ramnarayan I play the role of the older Sivakami and also helped in the choreography of the dances. I know that I’m likely to be thumped after doing this. But for me Sivakami is important. Natya encompasses all these for me. A dancer, I believe, must be open to experiments, exploration. And Devika what is coming up your way?

Devika: I have registered with the University of Madras for a PhD on Gandhi and Communication. In July I’ll be attending the World Creativity Summit in Hong Kong.

work

2007-06-11T17:45:00.000+05:30

Aseema had a great opening of the second phase of the project "Using performing arts as an empowering activity" at Avvai Home on 8th June.