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 e-mail: khokar1960@gmail.com Angikam bhuvanam... Aagnika Bhagyajainam! August 10, 2024 Dr. Aagnika's Nritya Samarpane was a grand function at Chowdaiah Memorial Hall in Bangalore recently. The city's cognoscenti was in attendance and she with her guru were in top form. What's top form? Three aspects ought to fall in place: Sangeet, sahitya, shastra. 3S. Add shishya! This one had beauty of form, clarity of delivery and depth of face to show fleeting emotions. One can see this talent enjoys dancing. Period. It comes through. Stage presence is an inborn gift. Either one has it or one doesn't. No amount of make up or jewellery can help. Aagnika has it. There's radiance in her personality and her smile is her best abhushan, jewellery. GSP (not gps!) is the kernel of Indian classical forms - that's guru shishya parampara. In whatever form it exists, this is the best way of taking art forward. Over a millennia this has happened and Indian arts have survived. Aagnika (one keeps thinking it is Angika! We in dance world are so used to Angikam bhuvanam yasya vachikam... or Angika, Vachika, Aaharya and Satvika). In the emotive parts of dance called the abhinaya there's a component of four aspects: angika (the body), vachika (the voice), aharya (costumes, make-up, scenery), and sattvika (mental states). With art loving parents, especially one like her mother Bhagya - who herself is a sculptor who learnt dance- it is natural for a child to be put to some cultural activity. And with a doctor father like B.S. Ajaikumar, eminent oncologist-scientist, expectations to do something meaningful with life is always there. Together they become Bhagyajai-nam! As in the caption. Upon return from USA, Aagnika was put to dance learning when she was just three plus! In Mysore, guru Shridhar Jain, a hard working, "kind-hearted" (the dulcet and soothing master-of-ceremonies Rupashree Madhusudan used this word often to describe the guru and she also gently told younger ones in hall not to hoot and scoot, whistle or bristle with too much energy as in a college function!) acharya was luckily found, who could chisel a good mould out of clay that the child was. Twenty years later we see the result today: first-rate foundation, impeccable delivery and good stamina, no huffing puffing. The effortless-ness in dance comes from hard practice. There is no substitute to that. A building is made with an architectural plan, good material, keen supervisor and finally good winds. Aagnika is now ready to fly. And she made her guru proud. 100/100 marks. The items showed freshness. Mysore style of Bharatanatyam and guru Shridhar's own inputs make it flourish with spiffiness and lightness of being. In all that she undertook from the Pushpanjali which had real flower petals to offer to lord of dance Nataraja, to Alarippu one could discern the chisel with which master sculptor Guru Shridhar Jain of Mysore has shaped this talent. Her hastas (most use the mudras wrongly in dance; that's for INANIMATE OBJECTS. Idols, sculpture. For living beings - dancers - it is hastas) are like flowers opening up; feet firm yet supple; there's spring in her steps and finally the head that coordinates rhythm, space to be covered on stage, lights, focus, theme, song, audience! If this is not multi-tasking then what is? A dancer is the ultimate multi-tasker and like Aagnika, one has also done a professional, rigorous course like MBBS (that's where her Dr. title comes from) then one realises all millennials are not sufferers, so suffer fools like us who often complain this new generation is lost. Aagnika reinstates our faith in millennials and that's a lot to change in our minds that are hardened.  Aagnika The two items that really did out were the padam and Ardhanarishwara. Padams are lovelorn songs, often laden with deeper yearning for meeting of atma with paramatma. Soul with God. Undertaken in human form of nayaka or hero and nayika or heroine, it has layers of reference to both this worldly and other worldly. That Aagnika - a youngster of 23 - showed convincing emotions and concomitant delineation shows here's a dancer with good potential to grow up in this aspect of dance too. She did full justice to the Daru Varnam, a taxing piece by any account. By the time a dancer undertakes a Varnam which has to show both the nritta and nrutya portions (that's the technical dexterity of movements backed with fine-tuned emotive aspects) the evening is half over, fatigue can set in. This item is the hallmark and real test to show strength of foundation and ability to deliver effortlessly. Which is what the dancer did. Kudos! Speeches can be the most boring part of such programs in South India. We Indians suffer from mike affliction and love the sound of our own voices. I always invoke ma Saraswati so whatever unplanned words come out of my mouth make sense to the audience, to those other dignitaries on dais and to the participating artistes. Saraswati helps me always as she knows I'm a man of modest talent. What I said is what I've written here albeit the speech was in condensed form! Next speaker was the fine Kathak guru Mysore B. Nagaraj, a sahrdayi and refined human being. He blessed the ward abundantly. Next the eminent violinist, composer, genius- maestro musician vidwan Manjunath enlightened how being a doctor and a dancer and using vastly different skills she still shone to advantage wherein mathematics held tala; chemistry helped communicate and biology displayed each limb of body in harmony to art. He also dovetailed with what's Bharatiya in Indian culture. EVERYTHING. It is the best culture - our classical arts - to showcase abroad. No other country has such potential. The most benign and elegant speaker of the evening was the theatre, TV, film, dance personality Seetha Kotte and she was an epitome of good grace and herself manifested various facets of her own artistic paths and regaled the audience with select musings that can help a young dancer grow. Last but not least, mother of the child, Dr. Bhagya herself, low key and shy initially, warmed up to share her own journey in dance having learnt from so many renowned gurus like the universally loved Narmada aunty, Vasundhra Doraiswami and others over the years and when she with family returned to India, the choice was how to make children exposed to and if inclined, interested in classical music and dance. Dr.Bhagya - herself a painter, sculptor of renown and her handsome art works on mudras were displayed nicely in the hall at entrance - shows quintessential Mysore royal culture. Old money does not bounce or show off.  Ardhanarishwara The speeches helped the artiste change to the concluding tour de force she was going to deliver but before that her father Dr.Ajaikumar came sweetly on stage to share the history and background of the next item, Ardhanarishwara. Shiva and Shakti. He alluded how humans were created by one account in Puranas as only the male species first. Women were created as humans needed to multiply. As a brilliant mind of science he said women have XX chromosome. Men have XY. So in each of us men there's hidden X women gene anyway! That's how his idea for a production of Ardhanarishwara arose. Guru Shridhar shared privately that for many years Dr. Ajaikumar toyed with the idea but guru himself was reluctant. Seeing Aagnika come on stage, left side Shakti and right Shiva, half of face in neelkantha Shiva blue-black and half face of Parvati in pink glow of face was well done in both make up and execution on stage. It is not easy to now turn only half of face and body and dance appropriately keeping the gender in mind. The eye for detail was such that even the feet were painted so! It is a powerful piece which should be shown in many places. This is one show that can travel worldwide to showcase duality of being in life, art and science. Guru Shridhar Jain has come up a winner. I have not heard a better music team in recent years that accompanies dance. Each one - from the divine vocalist Naveen M.S. Andagar to adroit mridangam by Kiran - provided top class accompaniment throughout the evening. Additionally, rhythm pads by Raghavendra Rangadhol supplemented by violin of M.V.S. Kumar and later jathis recitation by Lasya Jain, daughter of guru Shridhar Jain himself on the cymbals, on nattuvangam. The whole evening was uplifting really. One forgot bad roads, bad access, bad governance of India's best metro that's a hill station with nicest people living here. One forgot depressing news of the day, news that BN great Yamini Krishnamurthy had passed away and the organisers observed a respectful silence for that. This is true culture and royal Mysore at its best. This is one school of BN that's been marginalised and neglected for long and national bodies like the SNA should not only help revive but award some gurus too. The whole evening was rasa anubhuti and manotripti. How often does that happen these days? Need more be said? God bless. Mangalam bhava! Kathak school Sunatya Kathak acharya Shalini Garg mounted her annual day in which she showcased students from age 5-50. All shapes and sizes. Most showed good tayari, much involvement and happy faces. Shalini Garg is an acolyte of guru Rajendra Gangani of the Jaipur gharana.  Kathak by Sunatya  Kathak by tiny tots of Sunatya Her school also teaches passable Odissi by Esha Benegal and really mediocre BN. When a BN teacher can't even see basic positions are correct or not then what to say? Not one student sat properly, maintaining the araimandi position or basic hand postures or hastas. Even the grown-ups were careless and casual. Neighborhood classes are a good way to keep children off the roads but then don't put ALL on stage, just a few best. Afterall it is the teacher's name and the institution's name that gets spoiled, soiled or besmirched. However, in Bharatanatyam segment, one must give credit to modern item number in Spanish costumes! Maybe that's the strength of the teacher, to teach fusion dance . All participants managed well on the small stage and also formed good patterns spiffily. Odissi was contained and sweet. In the end , Kathak won the day. The school should focus on its core competency and leave other forms alone. Better be master of one form than none.  Critic, connoisseur, historian, author, artivist, archivist, administrator and more - editor, columnist and mentor Ashish Khokar remains true to his muse. 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