Ranjumoni Saikia is a leading Sattriya Guru, noted practitioner, choreographer and research scholar of Sattriya dance and culture, trained intensively under her father, the legendary Rasheswar Saikia Borbayan. She is carrying forward the pioneering work of her Guru and father who taught the dance to women. Ranjumoni strictly adheres to her Guru’s style and vision in her teaching and performances at home and abroad. Principal of Rasaraj Sattriya Sangeet Vidyalaya and teacher of Sangeet Sattra, she took up the challenge to stage for the first time the Ankiya Bhaona “Ram Vijay” with women artistes only. Author of the book, “Matiakhara Pathyakram”, a theoretical overview on Sattriya dance, Ranjumoni is the recipient of the Debodhara Award 2016.
Excerpts from an interview…
Please tell us about your father…
My father learnt Sattriya music and dance in the sattra (monastery) as a sattra bhakt but was compelled to leave the sattra for teaching women.
He started a Sattriya Dance school in Tinsukia and later shifted to Guwahati, started teaching Sattriya Dance and opened another school Bayaner School” which was renamed as Sangeet Sattra whose founder president was Dr. Maheswar Neog and founding principal was my father. He modified the deeply devotional abhinaya styles of the dance form of the sattras and made it artistically suitable for the stage and the audience. The rituals and movements in the “Namghar” are not the same when presented as a performing art. Sangeet Sattra under the guidance of my father had immense contribution in establishing the Sattriya dance, music and bhaona, developing and popularising it .
What was your training like?
I was five when I started. The teaching methods at our time were quite different from now. My father was very strict at the same time loving but when teaching my sister Rinju and me, he gave more attention to other students than us. We were always on the last line, the reason being that we were his daughters and people would say that he was being partial.
Whenever he judged a competition in college where I was participating he would always make me third no matter how well I performed. He felt it would diminish his sincerity if he would give me a higher position. However, he trained us thoroughly and I learnt the art in its purest form.
Nowadays, may be one out of ten know the pure form of dance as most institutions avoid the rigorous training of the pure form and prefer choreographed pieces and short cuts. I also learnt singing from him but do not perform. But I teach and perform Ojhapali. I started teaching from 1996 and both Rinju and I teach in Sangeet Sattra. Our school has more than 200 students , an Examination Board in which 200 dance schools in Assam are affiliated and we follow the syllabus laid down by my father which include Devadasi Nritya even though there are no Devadasis now.
Have you modified anything in your father’s teaching methods?
Not really, but I have made slight changes in the position of the “Ora” scientifically to render it suitable as a performing art and not as a devotional exercise (bhakti bhav) as in the sattras.
My father had adjusted the taals and music sometimes and I perform the same as you must have seen.
Tell us about yourvoluntary social service
As the joint secretary of Sattriya Shikshak Samaj and a member of Assam Sanskaar Bharathi, I run and teach at a school of the Satya Sai organisation. I teach dance to people of different communities and children of labourers free of cost.
But my main aim is to propagate and popularise Sattriya dance on the line of my father’s training to see that everybody in Assam learns Sattriya.
