Valmiki Banerjee’s Sankalp symbolised the restoration of faith in humanity and empowerment of youth, says Utpal K Banerjee
The savant from India, whose speech had begun, “Sisters and brothers of America ...” while introducing own faith to the Parliament of the World Religions in Chicago, was totally unknown in the whole of West. This was on September 9, 1893. Yet he had the perspicacity in calling the assembled 7000-strong, elitist, global fraternity his family: receiving a long, tumultuous ovation. He had also the temerity to quote the illustrative passage from Shiva Mahima Stotram, “As the different streams having their sources in different places all mingle their water in the sea, so, O lord, the different paths which men take, through different tendencies, various though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee!”
Despite its overall brevity, his speech voiced quintessentially the spirit of the Parliament and sense of universality of the human race: the significance of which was apparently lost over the next two centuries. Otherwise, as has been most perceptibly observed at India’s highest political level, the dastardly act of inhumanity — on 9/11, the very same date — could not have occurred in 2001, a good 208 years later. Swami Vivekanada (1863-1902) had gone on to provide a beckon light to both the West and the East: in all too brief a career. He had the courage of conviction to urge his countrymen to discard their slothful slumber of ages by the inspiring words: Arise, awake and accept your destined benediction…
Sankalp, recently presented by Delhi Ballet Group, was a tribute to this Indian savant. Directed and choreographed by the octogenarian guru Valmiki Banerjee, the dance-drama — while celebrating the diamond jubilee of the group — symbolised the re-instatement of faith and empowerment of youth. It drew a picturesque simile from Tagore’s short play, Kaler Yatra (The Journey of Time), where the poet visualises the life on earth to be thrown off-balance when the wheel of time comes to a standstill. To get it moving again, people beseech their monarch, religious gurus and the business tycoon. When they all fail, people pray for salvation and the wheel finally moves by the mighty pull of the down-trodden and the deprived classes.
In the balletic version, the physical embodiment of wisdom was made the fulcrum of the episode. On one end were the hoi polloi dancing — in folk form — around their king, faith-leaders and the money-lender; at the other end was the luminous presence ofPrajna (Sagacity): to guide them on to the correct path shown by Vivekanada: danced in Rabindranatyam (Tagore’s style) by comely maidens. The accompanying music was from Upanishads, a clutch of Tagore songs (mostly dhrupad), a solitary Nazrul lyric and a couple of Vivekanada’s dhrupads. The two halves seemed somewhat disjointed. The wheel of time — Tagore’s chariot-metaphor to highlight the prevailing social divide — appeared only marginally relevant and surely did not deserve the fairy-tale attires of characters within a realistic ballet. Where guru Valmiki scored was in an impeccable choreography. The solo and group movements, the narrative mood and the well-orchestrated dance-formations on stage were most attractive. Only the theme of Vivekanada’s illumined views needed a firmer grip on the subject matter, calling for a more relevant visualisation.
Defends the director, “I had many sleepless nights: trying to think how best to interpret such a great man. Trying to work on his life’s events and incidents would have been too elaborate and beyond our means. I sought to allude to Swamiji’s words on the youth, on women and on social inequality, through music and Rabindranatyam dance.”