Bhama Kalapam, recently presented by Kuchipudi danseuse Meenu Thakur, used Telugu songs. She tells Utpal K Banerjee that the tabla for a Hindi song would have hampered the vintage support of mrindagam for the dance form
In the second half of the 17th century was born the dancer-savant, Siddhendra Yogi, who created many items of Kuchipudi dance for his village Kuchelapuram in Andhra Pradesh. He taught his art to dancing Brahmins in almost every household and soon the small village — then christened ‘Kuchipudi’, after the dance-form, under the ruling Sultan’s munificence — saw the Brahmins performing Siddhendra’s glorious dance-drama Bhama Kalapam: spread over three consecutive nights. In fact, no Kuchipudi male-dancer was considered worth his name unless he had done this dance-drama at least once in his life-time.
Bhama Kalapam — culled from Matsya Puran of yore — is the delightful saga of Krishna’s ace-queen Satyabhama, who begins her role with a Praveshadaru (entry-time in Kuchipudi), displaying her pride and confidence that she is the favourite of Krishna. In successive dialogue, her vanity, envy, jealousy and anger are seen to create a dilemma for herself and cover all the phases of a romantic liaison — wit and humour, satire and sarcasm, pain and anguish, uncertainty and anxiety, and finally joy and ecstasy — for her divine consort, Krishna.
In the opening dialogue with her companion Madhavi, Satyabhama narrates the beauty of Krishna and — goaded by Madhavi to reveal her lord’s name — she blushes and hesitates doing so. Through another dialogue, she writes a letter to Krishna expressing her grief in separation from her beloved and entreats him to return to her. Madhavi hands over the missive to Krishna and — like a dutiful dooti (messenger) in Indian classical literature — gently persuades him to return the gesture. Ultimately, she understands her folly and Krishna returns to her, but not without s make-belief tiff. In a final amorous dialogue with him, she surrenders to his unconditional love.
Bhama Kalapam, recently presented by Kuchipudi danseuse Meenu Thakur and her group in the Capital, had the most refreshing feature of holding all the dialogues in simple Hindi. This was the first time that anyone had attempted to inter-lace the highly traditional Telugu lyrics with Hindi conversational mode for the north Indian viewers. Another distinguishing mark was that Satyabhama’s sequentially donning the role of heroines, first, as Swatdhina-bhartrika (the independent-minded one); then transforming herself as Kalahantarita (the quarrelsome one) and finally dissolving into Vasakasajjika (the gaudily-attired one) — in successive interactions with Madhavi and Krishna — were quite well-etched. Other than Meenu in the eponymous role doing a competent job, Nivedita as Madhavi was quite winsome. But the same did not apply to Krishna, whose garish make-up left little scope for imagination in an otherwise highly-stylised presentation.
Excerpts from interaction with Meenu Thakur:
In your performance, you used only Telugu songs. Did you consider turning the songs into Hindi as wellIJ
It would have been wonderful. But one needs an adequately-qualified, bi-lingual lyricist for this purpose. Besides, accompaniment of tabla for a Hindi song would have hampered the vintage support of mrindagam for Kuchipudi, won’t itIJ
How popular is Kuchipudi in India todayIJ
It’s quite popular and there is no dearth of students. My gurus Jayarama Rao and Vanashree Rao have rendered yeoman’s service, and so have other well-known gurus in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Chennai.
Has Kuchipudi found moorings abroad, as Bharatanatyam, Odissi and Kathak have doneIJ
There are many Kuchipudi training institutions in the USA and Canada. Teachers from the Kuchipudi village regularly go abroad and have extended periods of stay imparting training. Telugu associations abroad are also doing commendable work in holding periodically international dance festivals.
Where have you learnt your choreographyIJ
Having been groomed by my gurus, I now do my own choreography. I run a Kuchipudi school myself and teach students. I hone my choreography with them.
Kathak exponent Kumudini lakhia had said: ‘Give the gods a break’; how do you feel about using contemporary themes in KuchipudiIJ
I’m all for it. Given an opportunity and possibly provided some financial support, I’ve plans to draw on some possible theme from English literature. But it’s still under wraps!