After spending ten years completely absorbed in Bharatanatyam in Kalakshetra, when Minal Prabhu stepped out and began teaching, she was in for a shock. “I was 18 then and I had just stepped out of Kalakshetra, a place where dance was central to our lives. When I began teaching I realized that dance, which was the most pivotal element in my life, was actually the last priority in everyone else’s life. This was hard to digest. I would go back home and cry to my mother saying the girls are not coming to class regularly because they have an examination. In Kalakshetra, an exam would be postponed so that we could accommodate a rehearsal!” she said.
“My mother then told me to make dance a priority to my students, just as Kalakshetra had done for me,” she continued.
Minal was speaking at ‘Mulam’, a national seminar on ‘Guru Shishya Parampara’ organised by Shambhavi School of Dance on the occasion of Guru Purnima. The seminar had brought together a panel of practitioners of classical dance such as Lalitha Srinivasan, Pallavi Krishnan, Satyanarayanaraju, Rajendra Nyathi, Janane Murali and Vandana Supriya, most of whom had been through a form of the Guru-Shishya tradition at some point in their lives. So, instead of research papers on the subject, personal anecdotes like the one narrated by Minal filled the three hours of the seminar.
Like Minal, most of them had been through their share of shock at the idea of privileging anything other than their dance. This was primarily because they had witnessed first-hand and from close quarters, the love that their teachers shared for the art form and they had also been, at the same time, encouraged by their gurus to go ahead and fall in love with the art form. When each of the dancers spoke, one could sense the need to convey the ethos of a time and of what is perceived as a yesteryear learning tradition that is perhaps fast disappearing today.
“I was a dancer at 4, dancing to anything and everything that came to my mind. It was only at 10 that I went to train under my guru H. R. Keshavamurthy. He taught me discipline and made me adhere strictly to the classical mode. He encouraged me and gave me so many opportunities to perform. This only made my passion for dance grow. Though it was not a gurukula, we students used to go Keshavamurthy’s house. He even made us call him by his name! Later, I went to Dr. Venkatlakshamma who taught me abhinaya. She would just do the lines in myriad ways and would urge me to follow. What came naturally to her was very difficult for a novice like me to match. I was lucky because, for 25 long years, whenever she came to Bangalore, she would live with me. Those days have remained in my mind until today and I feel as if those experiences and learning help me teach my students as well,” explained Lalitha Srinivasan.
When each of the panelists spoke, their face lit up because they were recounting a part of their lives that had shaped them. “Our teachers not only taught us about dance. They groomed us in every way. Your whole personality was taken over by them and I think that is the best part of the Guru Shishya Parampara, ” recalled Minal.
That the equation was not just limited to dance but was also one that reflected a deep friendship and love became clear as more testimonies emerged. “I am what I am because of my gurus,” said dancer Satyanarayana Raju. “I used to be part of the early morning batch when I was learning from guru Narmada. After class, I would go home. But, shortly after that, I would get a call from Narmada ma’am, asking me what I’m doing and telling me to come back to class. ‘I’m choreographing a new varnam. Come’, she would say and I would immediately rush to class,” he narrated. In all these testimonies, what was evident was the fact that a teacher was as close as a parent for most of these practitioners. But, what if your guru was also your mother? Janane Murali had some interesting insights to share about learning dance from her mother Padma Murali. “When I look back now, I realise that I was lucky to perform at a young age at some of the best platforms and occasions in the city- that too as a child. But back when I was a child, all that I could think of when I was performing then was about scraping off the alta when I went home. I never knew the importance of dance or the opportunities I got back then. I realised then that a guru is someone that lets your art take you to your destination,” she narrated.
However, amidst accounts of such treasured and close equations between teachers and students, one was compelled to ponder about the current system of teaching and learning. Odissi exponent, Vandana Supriya, who was schooled in Nrityagram, . spoke of tough personal circumstances that led her to Nrityagram but in her narration, it was evident that even for the current generation, the age-old tradition is not an impossible one. “I think what my generation is lacking is a sense of commitment to what we do. Nrityagram has taught me life itself,” she said at the end of her talk. In a strange coincidence, a young Vandana’s account matched the words of Minal Prabhu and Lalitha Srinivasan, affirming one’s belief in the time-tested and decisive relationship between a teacher and a student.
