|     |
|
| |
 Mad and Divine - Debolina Ghosh e-mail: Debolina.2009@rediffmail.com August 7, 2024 On 28th July, G D Birla Sabhaghar in the south of Kolkata city was filled with spiritual and artistic ecstasy of 'Mad and Divine' that enacts the spiritual journey of Janabai and Lalded. Janabai was a Vaishnavite and Lalded was a Shaivite. Both of them were females. Both of them were mystic poets. Janabai was from Maharashtra. She was a 13th century saint poet. She used to work as a domestic help at Vaishnava poet Namdev's house. The religious environment of the house left a deep impression in her life. Janabai devoted her life to lord Vitthala. A very ordinary lady she was, always busy with daily household chores. Her hands used to grind at the mill but her lips always chanted the name of Hari. This simple lady has contributed about 300 abhangas in Maratha literature. Lalleswari or Lalla Arifa are the names by which Lalded was fondly called. Lalded was a 14th century Kashmiri, Shaivite poet. She was the creator of Vatsun, a style of mystic poetry. Lalded focused on the omnipresence of the creator and was against all kind of hypocritical religious discrimination and social injustices. One of her famous Vakh says that the almighty creator neither favours nor abandons any of his creations.  Rama as Janabai The unidirectional journey of two explorers of two different paths (Vaishnavism and Shaivism) was marvellously presented by Rama Vaidyanathan. The very entrance into the stage was striking and unconventional. She peeped out from the wings, facing the audience, soulfully calling Panduranga, "Utha Panduranga Utha". As if Panduranga would come out from the audience to meet Janabai on the stage. Description of a beautiful morning with sunshine and chirping of birds, daily household chores and description of the Vitthal idol was minutely described through the choreography. The audience was elated by the mesmerizing voice of Sudha Raghuraman. The mellifluous voice in the Carnatic raga is still resonating in the ears. Next, was the entry of Lalded, simple, fearless of materialistic clutches. Her only aim was to be united with the Supreme Consciousness - Shiva. Her chakrayatra through the seven chakras of the body (muladhar, svadhisthana, manipura, anahata, visuddha, ajna and sahasrara) was depicted with utter devotion. We, the audience also felt the exhilaration of Lalded with the exhilarating jatis. "Amrita Sarasa" - the spiritual exaltation of her union with Shiva rained upon us.  Rama as Lalded The most beautiful part of the evening was the story telling portions. The dancer while going on with her performance, paused a while, telling a story in her own voice about Janabai and Lalded. That transformed her from a protagonist to a choric character who is connecting with the rasikas. "They abused me, they worshipped me." Lalded was indifferent to both. It marks her as a true Shaivite as Shiva holds all the binaries like birth and death, male and female with calmness and indifference. A nice story was told here that one day Lalded took two pieces of cloth. Both of the pieces weighed the same. She put one on her right side, another on her left side. As many times she was praised she made knots on one cloth. As many times she was abused, she made knots on the other cloth. Both the pieces weighed same again. Through the stories, Rama has shown that the life of an Indian is beautifully designed with simplicity, religiosity and atheism. Most importantly, storytelling is the ancient form which can be still a strong tool of pedagogy. Change is the only constant and we need to evolve ourselves. The fact is very much prominent in the costume designing of Mad and Divine. Maratha style saree costume made the Janabai character livelier. Costume design for Lalded was more path breaking. Leaving the Kanjivaram silk saree, temple jewellery and gajra behind and wearing a simple white salwar kurta shows how much the form has penetrated into the character. Rama with open hair and white salwar kurta was looking like a Sufi saint while showing the frenzy and divine madness of Lalded. The melodious voice of Sudha Raghuraman took the audience to the realm of aesthetic enjoyment. Music of Lalded was rendered by Dr. S. Vasudevan with creative inputs by Sudha Raghuraman. The accompanists were Dr. S. Vasudevan on nattuvangam, Sumod Sreedharan on mridangam and flute by G Raghuraman. A big thanks to Taal Connect for presenting such a beautiful program on Bharatanatyam. Taal Connect in association with Sanskriti Sagar created the opportunity for Kolkata to witness Rama Vaidyanathan's profound production Mad and Divine.  Debolina Ghosh is an MPhil scholar, Department of Sociology, University of Burdwan, West Bengal. |
