At a time when Kathak was more popular as a court dance, Maharaja Chakradhar Singh of Raigarh (Madhya Pradesh), a great patron of arts, gave Kathak a classical form. He invited the best of scholars and artists to his durbar and penned treatises such as created treasures original compositions restored was restoring the prestige and treasured wealth of this classical dance form while working on it in a remote corner of the present day Madhya Pradesh. Patronising art and culture he brought the best of Gunijans, scholars, authors and Kathak gurus in his durbar and created original compositions, wrote authentic treatise like ‘Muraj Paran Pushpakar’, a compilation of pakhawaj bol-bandish, ‘Tala Toyanidhi’ (ocean of tala) and ‘Raga Ratna Manjusha’, a collection of ragas and compositions. He also created the Raigarh gharana of Kathak, which produced eminent artists.
All this and much more about the Raigarh Kathak was shared by Alpana Bajpeyi, the authentic dancer of this style and the senior guru at the Raigarh Kathak Kendra run by the Ustad Allauddin Khan Sangeet Evam Kala Akademi (AUKSKA), Bhopal. She mesmerised the audience with the aesthetic elan of her delicate dance presentation at the 42nd Khajuraho Dance Festival held against the spectacular backdrop of the magnificently lit Khajuraho temples.
Edited excerpts:
Explain how your Kathak presentation with rare compositions like ‘Dev Dundubhi’, ‘Meghaavart’, Taarka, Jhampaangi, Jahnavi and Gaj-Vilas etc and the Thumari preceded by the Gat-Bhav alternately emoting the Shringaar-Bhav of Krishna and Radha; were refreshingly different?
I owe it all to my Gurus of Raigarh Kathak Akademi, because I learnt Kathak for the first time only after getting scholarship by the M.P. Govt to join this institution. The training was in typical Guru-Shishya Parampara under Guru Kartik Ram who belonged to the Raigarh Durbar and his son Guru Ram Lal, who was a hard task master. I learnt the technique under Guru Ram Lal and Abhinay under Guru Kartik Ram. I’m with the Akademi for past 35 years, first as a scholar and then as a guru.
What are the distinct features of this style?
Maharaja Chakradhar Singh of Raigarh patronised exponents and gurus from various gharanas like Achhan Maharaj and Shambhu Maharaj from Lucknow, Pandit Jaylal and Sundar Prasad from Jaipur, Sukhdev Prasad (father and Guru of Sitara Devi) from Benaras, and tabla wizards like Ahmed Jan Thirakwa etc, hence he created a dance style incorporating the aesthetic elements of all these and more.
Raja Chakradhar Singh was also a nature lover so he created Pakshi Paran, Dal-Badal Paran, Kadak-Bijli Paran, Brahmbeej, Madhu-Gunjan et al. He did in-depth study of the Praacheen Tala Paddhati (the old system of rhythmic compositions), hence the Tala-Paksha (rhythmic aspect) is very strong in this style. Even the Hastak (hand gesture) would go according to the ‘Vazan’ of Tala and Laya. And the same would be depicted through the Uchharan (pronunciation) in articulate Padhant.
My guru would take one ‘Bol’ and then make umpteen variations of it. He would also encourage us to do so. He believed that one should know the rule but must also have the freedom to go beyond it to create new things. We follow both Lucknow and Jaipur styles but actually Raigarh Kathak is based on the Chhatisgarhi Chhattisgarhi folk dance hence the folk element is prominent in Raigarh Kathak. It also places importance on the poetic Parhant so that the visual picture emerges just by the verbal rendering of a particular Bandish. Here one has to take care of the Varnas also, whether it is the Varna of Pakhawaj or of dance. Teen-Tala is called ‘Rakendra’ because of its sixteen 16 Matras (beats) like the sixteen 16 Kalas of the moon. The Sapta-Shikhar Tala has seven types of rhythms. Maharaja Chakradhar Singh took out the Tala-Chakra from old treatise and got a chart made of Talas until 380 beats cycles. One speciality of Raigarh Kathak is also its command from “Ati Vilambit Laya” to “Ati Drut laya”, from very slow to very fast tempo.
