Colours of India! 

As Holi approaches, the colours of India come to play. Before that, by Basant Panchami there’s Spring in the air, anyway. Then there was the Mahakumbh where 50 crore Indians mostly, brought colours to the sangam of three rivers – Ganga, Yamuna and Saraswati – from all over the world.

Then colours are brought individually, by do-gooders like Jayashree Bahl (Neemrana group) who paints for herself and her paintings her childlike, innocent. She was home-bound in 2019 lockdown in Regent’s Park, London and told her hubby to get her Winnie the Pooh book and brushes and paints to start painting! Just like that. After seven books of poems till then, it was her adorable grandson Raphael, who was only two then, who inspired her to paint because he loved Winnie the Pooh. Her paintings have joy and beauty of cityscapes without people! Living in India, we are surrounded by millions so when abroad, often it is a relief not to see any human for miles! Birds, yes and what beautiful real life like Arup Kar paints. His colours have depth. He looks like a Bong film star – full of clean, bhadralok good looks! – a young Uttam Kumar with the same benign smile. The HABITAT Centre was their playground and among those gathered were art patron Aman Nath, Kuchipudi guru Vanashree Rao, Bharatanatyam dancer Rashmi Singh and upcoming talents like Washim Raja of Bengal, Bobby from Tripura and Muniya – Amrita from far away California. Add well-wishers and friends and it was Delhi gentry at its best with some Kashmiris and Garhwalis thrown in. Gujarat was represented by Khandwa, Tamil Nadu by Vada and North East by Momos at the lavish food counters. All had a good time in Delhi’s afternoon sun.

A bright morning had unfolded a day ago at the IGNCA where calligraphy was the focus and languages lost and scripts saved. The occasion: International Mother Language Day, inaugurated by the UNESCO South Asia Head Tim Curtis. He had been in India as a youth, when his father was posted as a High commissioner of Australia to India, so he has an old India connection. Dr Sachchidanand Joshi, the smiling and shining head of IGNCA, did the honours and his speech (what a soothing radio-voice-for-mike he has) was the most effective speaker when he said we focus on language but rarely on phonetics. His own name, he shared, in Maharashtra, where he hails from, ought to be pronounced as Zoshi. Not Joshi. Dr Gaur, the zealous dean of admin in IGNCA, in addition to being the head of Kalanidhi /library, shared his vast experience in the field and how statistics showed that nearly 400+ languages have been lost in India between 1960s and 2010. A book on art of calligraphy by late Rajeev Kumar, lavishly brought out by Dr Rita Mathur was launched on the occasion with beautiful scarves full of calligraphy gifted. The gathering also had experts from abroad: linguist Shobhana Chelliah from Bloomington, Indiana, USA and Dr Munshi from Texas. All spoke of loss of languages.

Loss of a young Odissi dancer – Rajnikant Mohanty – of Delhi was platformed through a heartfelt homage function at Hauz Khas Jagannath temple where one dancer impressed with his ang and dhang – Rahul Varshney. I had seen him as a boy of ten 20 years ago in his guru Jyoti Shrivastava house and today he has grown to be a handsome hulk of bulk of biceps that don’t do justice to his baby face with a sweet smile. That’s his real asset. The half-smile. Fortunately, his dance has lightness of being and he maintains balance and dignity. With proper mentoring he can go far. Rocky or Salman Khan of Odissi, eh?

Real rock star of Odissi, veteran guru Mayadhar Raut passed away as this function was on 22/2. He taught many stars of the form in the city like Aloka Panikar, Kiran Segal, Geeta Mahalik, Vanashree Rao and Ranjana Gauhar. He was a cherubic little man with a ready smile for all. He was a pioneer who left his small town Cuttack to come to Madras, Delhi and then with Aloka Panikar, go international. TTB in Bergamo, Italy too benefitted by his guidance. For many years he taught at the Bharatiya Kala Kendra. He brought in sancharis – delineations – in Odissi. That’s his biggest contribution. He also was a good story- teller through dance. He tried very hard to teach me in the 1970s but after a few months of teaching Dashavatara, he gave up saying this boy has no hips for Odissi so no future in dance. And so I made my own future by writing about dance and alas today I’m writing his obiTribute (a more detailed one coming up soon in a national news magazine with largest circulation). Life.

Life and marriages are made in heaven so when two Nepalis living as far in Bangalore and Delhi got engaged on Valentine’s Day and married on 18/2 their marriage was meeting of old with new. Karuna Shyam. Even the priest from Patel Nagar Nepal Samiti was slow as a snail but did all rituals meticulously. Nepal still retains old Hindu customs and traditions which North India, especially Delhi weddings have forgotten. Excellent non-oily food, good decoration and great cultured Nepali folks gathered to make it a memorable wedding. It was a truly joyous occasion. All went home fulfilled. How often that happens?

Ashish Khokar is India’s reputed arts historian, author and writer with 51 books to credit and 5k articles in the print media in the last 50 years. A pioneer  in arts admin from the 1970s, he has worked nationally (STAS, Sahitya Kala Parishad, INTACH, Martand Singh Asso) and internationally ( Festivals of India in France, Sweden, Germany , China and with AFS of USA as its India head) with many agencies, institutions,  museums and more. At heart a teacher, his discourses are full of information with humour and he is an expert visiting many universities and  also written 85 modules for UGC’s E- pathshala M.A. Course.  He is also the editor-publisher of India’s only yearbook on dance – attenDance – now in its 25th year. He has given attenDance awards to 40+ talents in the last 15 years and mentors many. He was the dance critic of the Times of India for 20 years, The Hindu for 5 and continues to be a contributor to India Today for the last 25 years. Ditto 25 years for India’s best portal for dance, narthaki. As custodian of India’s largest dance archives and collection valued at 7 crores  – built by his illustrious family Mohan and
Saroja Khokar and donated to the nation@IGNCA – he has shown the way to selfless service to India and its arts, education and culture.