A MID POINT RETROSPECT

“So what do you do ?” queried Tanuka, my batch-mate from Delhi University.

“I get up in the morning, reach the office, spend the day, leave for home, watch TV, have dinner, sleep, and then get ready for the office.” I responded.

“But you used to have such varied interests, what happened to those?” she persisted. I just smiled and kept quiet.

Indeed I had varied interests. But all that seems so long ago. We used to follow almost all the cultural events in Delhi. Mandi House was an oft frequented place, where we would drop by almost without any plans, to see - plays, classical or folk music and dance performances, and exhibitions of artists - budding or well known.

I have a feeling which is probably true for many of us - concentrating on professional aspirations comes at the expense of interests cultivated in years gone by.

As a student out of school, sports usually is the first casualty.

Sports and Statistics

I was very keen on cricket in the school days. We used to participate in summer \ hot weather tournaments promoting club cricket in Delhi. When I joined Hindu College my friends from school advised me to refrain from joining the cricket team. Those who joined the cricket team were supposed to do nothing but play cricket. You have to miss the classes and unless you are doing something like BA (Pass Course), clearing the exams could be very troublesome. I had already been warned that the pass rate in my chosen discipline – Economics (Hons.) was not very encouraging. So I refrained.

In retrospect, I consider my decision not to pursue cricket in the college, one of the luckiest. This conclusion is based on sheer statistics. I remember a number of cricketers who represented Delhi in school, but were lost at the university level. At the university this death percentage was even more alarming. In fact from school to university, university to Ranji Trophy, and Ranji to Test cricket, imply huge jump in the levels. Making it to the next level requires both high calibre and\or connections. If these loss proportions are widely publicised, the budding cricketers would probably attend more classes as the probability of doing well in studies is significantly higher than making it to next level in cricket in India.

Where Mythology and Science Meet

I had never watched a classical dance performance till I saw Sonal ManSingh perform in the first year of my college, and was spellbound. I still remember the delightful speech she made.

Before performing ‘Dashavatar’ she told us how it reinforced the Darwinian theory of evolution evoking laughter from ignorant college students. She then explained how different stages of evolution could be correlated to : ‘Matsya’ the first avatara which could live only in water- true for earliest life form, followed by ‘Katchhap’ or turtle which could live both on land and in water. Subsequent avatars of - ‘Varaha’, ‘Narsimha’, and ‘Vaman’ trace the evolution from animal to human form, till “Rama’ emerges embodying the full human form. The whole auditorium applauded at this novel interpretation of Dashavatar.

In the years to follow, I saw performances of nearly all great classical dance performers. Classical dances brought alive all those mythological tales we were familiar through ‘Chandamama’, an addiction in childhood days. How one lost touch with classical dance performances is difficult to say. It definitely was not a conscious decision.

Folk versus Modern

I started watching folk performances much later. In fact I was already on my first regular job and was attending the office near ITO. At the Pyarelal Auditorium just next door, Uttara Asha Kurlawala was to perform. We went to see the performance after purchasing tickets which were expensive by rates prevailing in those years. I recall only one particular performance that evening which was engaging. Rest was just okay. Next day a troupe from Maharashtra was to perform folk dance, for which no tickets were needed. When we visited the auditorium, it was a pleasant surprise to find that performing artists were the same who were featuring in a programme called ‘Maharashtra Ki Lokdhara’ on Doordarshan. As we watched the performance of these artists, the blandness of the performance we had seen a day before became apparent The sad part of it was that while the modern dance troupe had performed to a full house, the auditorium was only half filled for a much superior performance requiring no tickets.

In subsequent years something quite extra-ordinary happened. Suddenly Government of India woke up to the fact that that our folk dances and music needed promotion. Regional cultural centres were set up all over India, and folk artists from all parts of India could perform at metros. In Delhi, Sangeet Natak Academy started their own festivals of folk performances called ‘Lok Utsav’. I saw ‘Lok Utsav’ a four to five days festival organised in the lawns of ‘Rabindra Bhavan’, every year till early Nineties. It was suddenly stopped presumably because of paucity of funds.

Till the time it was organised Lok Utsav was one of the most likeable cultural events organised in Delhi. Now the only way to keep contact with folk performances is through folk dances programme organised at the time of Republic Day. The Talkatora stadium however, lacks the atmosphere of Rabindra Bhavan and the cultural calendar of Delhi has become poorer sans ‘Lok Utsav’.

Play Time

The first play that I ever watched was a Vijay Tendulkar play called ‘Panchhi Aise Ate Hain’. I followed it with years of regular visits to Mandi House. It was apparent that one got much better entertainment, at much lesser cost and with much better crowd. Every year we used to follow the performance of NSD Repertory and the students of NSD with keen interest. We watched many plays which left us emotionally drained. I remember ‘Ek Ruka Hua Faisala’ which brought together twelve of the best artists of Delhi theatre. Some of the memorable plays we saw were - Jasma Odan, Ashadh Ka Ek Din, Ascent of Fujiyama, Andha Yug, and some of the outstanding performances by Uttara Baokar in role of Gandhari in ‘Andha Yug’, Naseeruddin Shah as Don Juan in ‘Don Juan in Hell’ based on Man and Superman of George Bernard Shaw, Manohar Singh as Mohammed bin Tughlak.

Eighties provided some excellent performances in Delhi theatre. However, the plays get affected substantially by the calibre of performing artists. I recall ‘Andha Yug’ performed by artists from Bharat Bhavan under direction of Karanth, was ordinary in comparison to the one performed by NSD. The coming of cable TV and private channels saw a mass exodus of top artists from Delhi to Bombay, affecting the quality of plays in Delhi.


The fall and fall of Indian Cinema

It was funny to hear Naseeruddin Shah vent his diatribes against parallel cinema of Eighties. In one of his interviews he said that while critics disliked his role in a Bombay masala movie where he had to wear a bikini, every one applauded his role where he drove a herd of pigs across the river wearing loin clothe. It was an astounding statement. I had found ‘Paar’ the movie he was referring to very moving, in fact one of the best movies made in the decade of Eighties.

The interest I developed in Indian cinema was based on chance. It was impossible to get tickets for good western movies in the International Film Festival organised at Delhi, so we started concentrating on the Indian panorama. By the time we started following Indian movies, the big names of Bengali cinema, were past their most creative years. People such as Mrinal Sen, Buddhadeva Dasgupta and Gautam Ghosh had started making movies in Hindi. Shyam Benegal, Govind Nihahalani, Amol Palekar etc. had established their names in Hindi parallel cinema. Other than watching good Hindi movies, the Indian Panorama opened the world of good regional movies to us. I found many of the Malayalam, Kannada and Assamese movies a great experience.

Nineties saw a big drop in the quality of movies made in India. We had kept touch with the better Indian movies via the National Film Festival held every year in Delhi. Suddenly a number of popular movies started being shown in the Film festival in the garb of wholesome entertainment, national integration etc. Most of the directors who had appeared in Eighties could not come out with equally powerful movies in Nineties. So my interest in National Film Festival and Indian movies dwindled.

I have not seen a National Film Festival for quite a few years now. I do not know if good movies are being made which we are not aware of, or if there are no worthwhile movies to see. Office work and cable TV have certainly pushed out what added a touch of quality to my life of Eighties.