Echoes of My Mind

The Telegraph - Calcutta : Northeast

The Hindu : Friday Review Hyderabad / Dance : Devadasi fest delights audience

Photo: Avinash Pasricha The National Devadasi Festival: A Treat to the Mind The image of a trip to a particular place itself sounds arresting and adventurous. Apart from acquainting us with a new atmosphere and apprising us of vivid identities of our socio-cultural milieu, a trip at times also provides us spiritual delight. And why not? Especially when someone is getting an opportune moment to share some great ideals of the Vaisnava faith, transcending all the boundaries of caste and creed, community and other religions, the journey takes a shape of an ensuing pilgrimage. Like many other pilgrims I felt blessed with the invitation from Devadasi Nrutya Mandir, to perform Sattriya Dance in the 3rd National Devadsi Festival. The thought of visiting the punyabhumi of Lord Jagannath itself, uplifts one to the height of utmost satisfaction and adding to it, when one gets an opportunity to offer Nrityanjali, joy overshadows all bounds. Indeed the fest provided a right set of circumstances to...

Blooming Towards Maturity Movements of mind with its spontaneous emotional beats set the mystic yet rhythmic pace of our life to a new direction -- a journey of hope replete with the qualities of fresh ideas and finer impressions. And gradually they culminate in a unique feast of the soul leading us to a journey so beauteous and truthful. John Keats undertaking that voyage of mind perhaps had truly spoken of art as the best medium to eternalize a particular moment of life. When he wrote, “Beauty is Truth, Truth Beauty…..” Keats did it through his art of poetry while musicians, dancers and the painters do it with the shades of true emotions and sentiments with their respective genres of art. The truth again perhaps, is the continuance of the artistic journey of the artist celebrating the eternal moments, with fresh blooming, extending to the realm of beauty and the grandeur of human art. ‘Prerona’ was such an event of beauty and joy, initiated for the promotion of the new blossoms in mu...

Adaptation of new ideas and beliefs, changing a particular state of being to something more aesthetic is a human tendency and it is present in every group, association or in wider terms, society. The history of the civilization of man provides the best illustration in this regard; the course in which man gradually developed from its bestial nature to the standard of higher life of a civilized society through the successive amelioration and the transmitted knowledge of the forefathers. But within this saga underlies certain facets that contributed to the development of man in a true sense, humane. It helped in giving a new outlook as well as a shine to the society. The constant search for something higher within man has led to the evolution of culture. The idea of cultivation inherent in the word culture has again led to the pursuit of refinement and perfection of all human endeavours, physical, mental and societal. Culture with its various means is one such important component that has...

THE JOURNEY TO REACH BEYOND “ A man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what is a heaven for?” said Robert Browning. Whether one reaches or experiences heaven is debatable or a subjective question. But the eternal quest of man makes him always to look and reach beyond in the voyage of his life. It is more so in the peregrination of an artist adhering to a ritual form belonging to the sanctum. It is true of Adhyapak Ghanakanta Bora, the celebated Sattriya Dance exponent who taking an expedition from an obscure village in Dakshinpat of Majuli, the river island of the Brahmaputra, always has envisioned beyond the peripheral grounds. Contrary to the time honoured saying that the home is the best seat of learning for a child, child Ghanakanta’s journey started with a dislocation from the familiar surrounding paving owards the making of familiarizing the de-familiar. Lifted from the playful household life at 4, the young child was placed at the monastic order of the Kamalabari Sattra, a prem...

Traditional art forms are subject to cycles of growth, decay, renewal and reconstruction, many a time. Indian Dance for centuries survived in the precincts of temples and courts that nurtured the art forms and contributed to its sustenance. However, it suffered a gradual decadence during the colonial period and it was only after the emergence of the Nationalist Movement that there was an upsurge of Indian dance. And the regeneration can undoubtedly be acclaimed as Dance Renaissance that followed during the Post Independence period. Situated in an extreme corner of the country Assam with its Sattriya art however escaped from such amelioration. The lamp lit in the 15th and the 16th centuries leavened through the ages and continue to lit with all its brightness even today. Thus with such a hoary past Sattriya Dance is one of the greatest living traditions of Indian art. The Sattriya Dance, one of the finest forms of Indian dances, emerges from an offshoot of the Neo-Vaisnava movement in ...