Some artists have a tireless capacity to question the status quo. This indeed seems to be a quality of veteran Bharatanatyam exponent C.V. Chandrasekhar, who joined the ranks of the country’s most eminent artists as a Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellow, or Akademi Ratna as the title is called in Hindi, at a ceremony in New Delhi the other day.
No sense of complacency emanates from Professor Chandrasekhar, who was closely associated with the M.S. University of Baroda and bolstered its performing arts teaching programme. These days, when teaching methodologies for the arts are coming in for debate, he is candid in his assessment of the merits of university courses versus the more informal transmission of the arts from teacher to student through personalised teaching or dedicated institutions.
There was a time, he says, when he strongly advocated setting up departments of dance in universities. “I fought for it a long time,” he says. When he was a young man in Banaras, employed as a dance teacher at a school there, and later teaching students at Banaras Hindu University, “dance was not a curricular subject at all,” he explains. It was treated as an extracurricular option, to be chosen instead of physical training or NCC participation, he adds. Later when a dance department was begun, he held the post of lecturer. In 1980, he moved to Vadodara where he joined the M.S. University, Baroda, as Head of the Dance Department. “Through the 17 years I stayed in Banaras I did a lot to teach the dancers, not just to pass an examination but to understand the details of performance,” notes the veteran.
Baroda University is recognised as a pioneer among its peers for its emphasis on performing arts. “So I felt every university should have a department of dance,” continues the professor, who took early retirement and settled in Chennai in 1992.
“When I came down to south there was hardly any university that had dance as a subject.” Eventually, he adds, the University of Madras began it, then others like Tiruchi. Today the situation is one where a number of universities are offering dance as curricular subjects at both the graduate and post graduate levels. He notes that there are degree holders whose practical training is even “shoddy”, and “everybody’s doctoral thesis is not up to the mark”. Yet the universities are often bound by rules to hire those with the paper qualifications.
“So after a period of time, that enthusiasm I had for academics has gradually waned. And I’m very confused right now,” he admits. Even a renowned institution like Kalamandalam (teaching Kathakali, Mohiniattam, Thullal and other traditional Kerala arts) had to compromise on certain of its founding ideals to qualify as a deemed university, he points out.
He is coming round to the conclusion that an institution like Kalakshetra, his own alma mater, is finally the best solution to educating artists in a holistic manner. “The course at Kalakshetra was never recognised, although it has produced some excellent dancers,” he says. Yet he is glad that Kalakshetra’s founder Rukmini Devi Arundale never succumbed to the temptation of coming under the umbrella of the University Grants Commission and so that the unique features of the training at Kalakshetra could be retained.
For his part, he did not have a post graduate degree in dance when he was made head of the department at Vadodara. “I only had a PG diploma in dance. And two or three other teachers (at the university) were from a traditional background. There was a clause at the time that the necessity of a masters degree need not be considered for teachers from a traditional background. Now, I think it’s necessary for the universities to continue that clause for appointing gurus or teachers for the arts, and not asking them for any degrees. Of course, you can have degrees for those who teach only the theoretical aspects,” he concludes, adding that even then there should be a regular communication between the practical and theoretical teaching.
While in Vadodara, along with his Bharatanatyam dancer wife who taught privately under the banner of Nrityashree, the professor groomed a number of dancers and produced choreographic works.
His choreographic works over the years, where the dancers’ high level of technical training was in evidence, have been well received. These include “Ritu Samharam”, “Meghadutam”, “Bhoomija”, “Aparajita” and “Pancha Mahabhootam” among others. For most of these productions, he has composed the music himself.
He is widely respected among his peers and among the young generation of artists for his vast knowledge and experience, cutting across demarcations like North and South India. Yet he is full of admiration for the artists who have shaped him. He recalls with gratitude the great educational exposure he received by spending so many years in Varanasi. “I have been with such great scholars. Even the privilege of hearing them (is in itself a great thing),” he feels.
He remembers his teachers at Kalakshetra: Apart from the towering example of Rukmini Devi, he had Gurus K.N, Dandayudhapani Pillai and Karaikal Saradambal and Mylapore Gowri Ammal teaching him. He recalls that Saradambal would sometimes teach folk movements, which he recalled in later years during his choreographic work. Formal Bharatanatyam training was continued under veterans Sarada Hoffmann, Vasantha and S. Sarada. Music training was under T.K. Ramaswamy Iyengar, Budalur Krishnamurty Sastri and others. “They’ve all contributed so much. I’m very happy Sarada (Hoffmann) teacher is still there. It has been so nice because we’ve grown together not as student or teacher, but as very close friends.”
This is a significant remark, since in a climate where “everybody’s a guru,” which he finds “a little disturbing at this point in my life,” he doesn’t even feel comfortable calling himself a guru, aware that knowledge is a vast ocean. “I say, you may call me guru, but I know what I know, and I know what I don’t know.”
Life too, with its twists and turns, has been a major tutor for this artist. He had intended to complete his Ph.D in science from BHU when a change of professor — who “wasn’t happy with my life as an artist and scientist”— led to his abandoning the research. While in Varanasi he also had a chance to come to Delhi in 1954 to attend a dance competition where he won the first prize. And then in 1955, he went on a tour to China along with a students’ delegation led by Vice-Chancellor Sir C.P. Ramaswamy Iyer. He taught his friend, Suhasini Mulgaonkar, to sing the Paras raga tillana for his performance and also used a 33 rpm record obtained from the Indian embassy with music tracks of alaripu and “Natanamadinar”.
These experiences served to bolster his confidence. Otherwise, as he mentions, his were not the circumstances in which he could decide to dedicate himself to dance alone. As for his study of dance, even that seems to have been fated, since he first enrolled at Kalakshetra as a music student and for a year learnt only music.
“I suppose it was the atmosphere at Kalakshetra. I can’t say I was aware of it. Probably my parents saw it (his interest in dance).” He remembers wearing a “pavadai chattai” and dancing with a little girl, his schoolmate, who grew up to be the mother of renowned dancer Jayalakshmi Eshwar. “We both got a gold medal.”
On finishing school and joining college, he was allowed to stay in the hostel, attend college and come back to his pursuit of Bharatanatyam. “And both Vasanta teacher and Sarada teacher would wait for me. You couldn’t think of anything till the bell rang for dinner at 7 o’clock.”
Then he decided he wanted to study medicine. “I told Athai (Rukmini Devi) I want to do medicine but also dance. She said you have to choose. I was only 18, I think.” She also warned him that he was unlikely to get time to dance if he took up medicine. “So I decided to do a B.Sc and stayed two more years at Kalakshetra.”
Having taken early retirement and returned to Chennai, he is very happy that students come to him for mentorship and advanced training. They come from various banis of Bharatnatyam. While he is at ease with styles, he does maintain basic principles of movement and body line. “I’m continuing to dance. That is my greatest joy.”
As to his age-defying dancing, he says, “Will power is one thing, and of course my habits must have helped me.” His eating is limited, and he never drinks. “People ask me, what do you do? Do you do yoga? My energy comes mainly from my habits. I don’t know how long god will allow me to dance. Life has been wonderful. I have no complaints. When somebody was a hindrance for me, I never fought, I went away from them.”
