By Tessa Dsouza, Class of 2019
Team Top Girls: Unintentional Magic and Provocative Conversations
Vandita Bajaj, Class of 2020
Caryl Churchill’s original play, Top Girls, premiered in 1982 at the Royal Court Theatre, London. It was influenced by conversations on feminism and the multiple roles a woman has to play “successfully”. Decades later, we still grapple with the same questions. Tanvi Mehta(’18), Kaagni Harekal(’18), Shubhangi Karia (’18) and Veeha Verma(’19) came across Top Girls in their Forms of Literature class taught by Professor Jonathan Gil Harris; a year later, they are (nearly) all set to present to the Ashokan community a unique take on the play.
I got the chance to meet the directors (according to them and the team, they are mere “facilitators”) and the cast during their weekend rehearsals. There was pizza, laughter, sassy comments, additions and deletions to the script and, obviously, loads of drama! Everyone was in character, a certain individual who plays a popular (read: overrated) author even insisted on calling his publicist before we started the interview, which made for a rather interesting chat.
The interview has been edited for the sake of clarity and, more importantly, in order to avoid spoilers.
Here’s what the bubbly directors AKA facilitators had to say:
Why did you choose Top Girls and how much have you departed from the original play?
Tanvi: We have significantly departed from the Churchill’s version! We have taken it entirely out of context, using only the premise of Act I to make our entire story. We had some idea of where we wanted to go with it, but it took a long time and a lot of fighting to figure out exactly what we wanted to do.
Kaagni: It helped that, somewhere, we all knew that we did not want to do a direct rendition. We wanted it to be extremely relevant to where we are right now. While Churchill’s version was a landmark in its time, we can confidently say that ours is as provocative and impossible to divorce from the politics of our times.
Shubhangi: I think the incentive to re-imagine it also had to do with thinking through and appreciating the way Churchill plays with temporality to bring seemingly strange characters together to make a statement.
Veeha: It took a double meaning; it wasn’t just the genius of the play itself but also that it hit home in more ways than one.
What was the response you got from the student body when you sent out a call for auditions and joining the production team?
Veeha: We didn’t have a massive response, but we managed to get just the right people. If we had to pick from scratch, we would make all the same choices.
Kaagni: I was very surprised with the response we received. Personally, I don’t have any experience in theatre, and I walked into the audition slightly late (to curb this problem of late arrivals, every member who arrives late has to do ten core exercises for every minute past start time). I saw a bunch of random people going at it and killing it! A lot of our actors haven’t acted before, but when they came into that room there was a certain honesty and commitment that could be identified. We had looked at the play for so long that we ran out of ideas. Then, you have these new people coming in and bringing to life statements that we believed we had over-thought.
Tanvi: In the long run, it was valuable that most of our actors weren’t seasoned actors. We did a month of improv so they could truly get under the skin of their character, and they really delivered.
Kaagni: Shout out to our production team, too! Since we have had a team in place, they have been coming and watching rehearsals, talking to us and the actors, taking notes. Really, Team Top Girls isn’t just the four of us and the actors but all of us!
You said in one of the initial emails you sent out that you were hoping to use the voices of the actors to shape the characters they play; essentially, the actors were shaping the play rather than the other way round. How did this “collective process” pan out?
Tanvi: We are asking a lot of questions! It is really different from traditional theatre where a script is written and given to the cast to perform. The play has come together with the efforts of the entire cast. We wanted it to be a democratic collective of voices.
Shubhangi: We didn’t plan how the characters shaped; it was the actors who decided this right from the first audition we had. We noted down random things that they said that fit in with the personality of the character they were playing. It is the actors who have figured it out for themselves.
Do you think the actors made the play rather than the play moulding the actors?
Veeha: We wanted people to be able to think and talk in a way they would stand out rather than ape each other. Even if they are on stage for a minute we want everyone to be aware of their presence. It just took off from the first audition, everyone brought to life these personas; people came into play as someone but ended up doing another role because it was really personality driven.
Tanvi: In a sense, the play and the characters are very unintentional. I have a lot of faith in that unintentional magic. We want the audience to pick up things we may not have thought of, the characters to have their own dynamic rather than being confined by a script; our job is to get all these people together and let the magic happen!
Kaagni: We are just facilitating a way to have conversations that people have at dinner tables all the time. They let lose, say things that they don’t mean or say things that they actually mean but in ways that people will ignore.
What are the challenges you faced and how did you manage to overcome them?
Veeha: There have been multiple crisis situations, like not having a venue a week before the play. We have disagreed on things like the colours of costumes. But it’s worked out in the end.
Kaagni: Obviously, democracy takes time, right. We had certain ideas about the way we wanted certain things to play out. This was both, our biggest challenge and strength. We went into practice and, sometimes, we asked our actors to rethink the way they were going about things, and there would be intense arguments but it just meant that they were so passionate about the way they thought their character should shape up.
Shubhangi: Nothing was to be premeditated. It was meant to be a conversation, anything else would have been an injustice to Churchill and our vision.
Kaagni: We did so much improv, the cast hated us by the end of it. For us it was “Press Play, Be Cool”, and we expected them to deliver.
Shubhangi: And they did! Every time! Sometimes better than the other time; sometimes not so. But it was never bad.
Tanvi: Reaching that balance between director and facilitator was tough. We had first-timers who had never thought about inhabiting another person in the way we were expecting them to. While we wanted the actors to be independent, we also had to hold them accountable to a standard that even we hadn’t figured out. So, letting the reigns go and still holding ship together was challenging.
What made you choose the particular female characters you have chosen?
Tanvi: There were so many arguments — how many fictional characters, national or international characters, temporal, mythological — but the focus was to bring diversity. The whole point was to create a conversation on the table that approached an idea from various different angles, to have twelve different responses to one word.
Kaagni: Diversity of thought is crazy important. If you take away the names and outfits of any of the characters, you hear them everyday! We have characters who have very different notions of the way the world works, and we wanted these set of people to talk to each other and say what they wanted to say out loud.
Veeha: It would have been really easy to choose people like Indira Gandhi or Mary Kom, but we don’t want to give the audience people whom they love and admire. The characters we have chosen are controversial because they have played incredibly crucial roles in our lives in defining what we as Indians understand the female identity to be.
You have chosen some controversial male characters, what prompted you to do so?
Tanvi: We were on the fence about whether we wanted it to be an entirely female cast. We realised that none of us were happy with the idea of not having any men in the conversation. We wanted to break away from the idea that feminism is only for women — it’s for the feminine that isn’t confined to gender.
Shubhangi: The male characters are or were invested in “writing women” via different mediums, and so it becomes interesting to include them in the conversation.
Veeha: It’s interesting to explore what these people have to say when they are placed in such a context, whether they feel comfortable or not.
Hollywood has 1 female director for every 22 male directors, in the Indian film industries both Bollywood and regional the proportion is even lower. How important is it that we have more women in these positions?
Kaagni: I feel really strongly about this, and it was very evident in the process behind this play. There is a certain way in which we need to learn to use our bodies and voices that not just make people respect us but also be more collaborative. The fact is, all of us are in this together. There is something fundamentally different in the process when women occupy these positions.
Veeha: I think there is this bizarre notion of the female vision being the weaker vision — that it can only provide you with fairytales and rom-coms. As soon as people realise how untrue that is…take Kathryn Biglow’s The Hurt Locker as an example.
Tanvi: You can tell immediately when a woman has written or directed something. Take Jessica Jones, for example: you can literally hear the woman speaking. I don’t know how I feel about men writing women. But what I strongly feel is that female voices are really important, not only because of the experiences that they have but, as Kaagni said, the process is different.
Shubhangi: I am kind of on the fence with what I feel about men writing women and women writing men. But having been part of this play with the three of them, I have realised that it is hard to get people to listen to you. In this group we have a great dynamic. And it has been really helpful to learn how to be different kinds of leaders.
Shubhangi: The fact that there are four of us, we have four different ways of approaching it. So, it’s a lot about finding what works better and why, rather than what is absolutely right.
Tanvi: And learning to be sensitive and listen to each other! Because it’s not just about knowing your lines and expressions but to work with each other to create something together rather than just giving directions and following them.
Kaagni: We still aren’t on the same page about what we want from this, which is great. The opportunity for ambiguity, for letting this slide rather than micromanaging everything comes from people who are willing to listen. And more often than not, these tend to be women.
What do you think about the discourse on feminism and gender at Ashoka?
Shubhangi: (Who had many answers to this question) In the past couple of months, what has been really disheartening is that we have starting looking as Ashoka as a safe space for our conversations about Feminism. We all proliferate this façade of safety. When you stand up and say, “we need to talk about this; it is still a problem”, you face tremendous backlash.
Tanvi: To claim a safe space where I can say anything because it’s a liberal institution not realising that “I have the right to say what I want” comes with the responsibility to be accountable to what you say — making anonymous accusations is problematic because you are holding someone else accountable, which they should be, while evading the same accountability yourself.
Kaagni: I may disagree with Tanvi in that regard. There are feminisms. The rhetoric that we are exposed to is very American, very pop-culture and Internet. People in India don’t talk that way; the language just ends up alienating more people. We need to question the idea of the safe space. Is education supposed to be safe? Do we just want to create an echo chamber? Safe doesn’t mean you are able to talk and exchange emails; it means that you are open to hearing other people out and modifying or compromising your own beliefs — the leeway to learn and change. We constantly want to be held up to this one ideal intellectual identity, so we are afraid to make mistakes and learn from them.
Veeha: When you come to Ashoka, there are certain ideals you are expected to pick up on; we do it almost instantaneously, but then it just flatlines. The inherent sexism in the interactions is ignored because we feel like our college stands for being “liberal” and certain things are permissible. It is such a blessing that we have such a liberal space, but that shouldn’t stagnate the conversation because we start to feel that we have already reached somewhere.
How do you see your production of Top Girls making an intervention here?
Tanvi: I don’t want to be presumptuous and say that Top Girls is going to change the conversation. But, indeed, the idea behind it is to present a form of conversation that we would like to have.
Kaagni: The idea is to present something that you may disagree with, but that you open up yourself and listen.
Shubhangi: Our play is perhaps too cynical a criticism, but it isn’t a representation. We are a pessimistic bunch of skeptics, but that is why there are funny conversations.
Veeha: I hope it is a rupture in the conversations we have at Ashoka. We are not trying to please you; we are saying feminism is structured in a different way for everyone, and it isn’t this one sensationalized version of it that we see around us most of the time.
Don’t miss out on your chance to hear some iconic voices talk about the times we live in. Be there at the MPH, 9 PM on 26th April (Thursday) to be part of an unforgettable conversation with Team Top Girls.
The author is an Arts & Culture staff writer at The Edict.
Life Cycle of the Commons Window
By Tessa Dsouza, Class of 2019
Fake Lies | Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Rohan Parikh (Junior Correspondent at Free Press Pvt. Ltd.)
Fake Lies is a satire and humor series about Ashokan life and culture (or lack thereof).
Last Thursday was unlike any other at Hoshak University. In the wee hours of the morning, long after the case-by-case students had been carted back to the University and the lightweights had passed out, the mythic figure of Zarathustra appeared on the dingy dance-floor of the Sobriety is Sadism Point (SSP).
Hoshakans drunk on love and spiked alcohol stared as the bearded man with a snake coiled around his staff and eagle perched on his shoulder stepped into the light. A vegan began commenting on animal cruelty but Zarathustra silenced her merely with his steely gaze.
Thus spoke Zarathustra, “I come to you at this hour for you are all seriously jacked up. This is probably the only time you will listen without interrupting.” He looked around and grimaced. “Hoshakans, there is much in you that is contemptible, base, and downright laughable.”
A student whispered to her friend, “Fuckin’ first years.”
“No!” boomed Zarathustra, “Everyone is responsible for this filth. The highest among you cower beneath a glass ceiling ten inches high. But you are not yet doomed. Hoshakans, I teach you the Overachiever. You are but a bridge, an overcoming, to the Overachiever.”
Upon being met with puzzled expressions, Zarathustra continued, “The University belongs to the Overachiever. The Overachiever laughs at you, Hoshakans, the way you laugh at the degenerates that live a few kilometers down south. The night is inky black, and the Overachiever is your pole star.”
At this point, a few couples scoffed and resumed making out. Some began haggling over the speakers. An indolent third-year student took a drag of her cigarette and blew the smoke right onto Zarathustra’s face. “We are the best of the country,” she proclaimed. “We don’t need no teachin’, Mr. Wannabe Jesus.”
Zarathustra sighed. “I have spent far too long in the mountains, listening to the brooks and the trees. My words are not for these pseudo-intellectuals. Must I smash their portable speakers before they listen? Must I put real lenses into their spectacles before they see? Or do they only believe gossip mongers like the PrEdict?”
Thus spoke Zarathustra, “Let me teach you the Last-waker. They are the fleas that hop about on campus, looking for walls to scribble on; they are the pests that go knocking on doors begging for free food; they are the vermin that steal WiFi passwords and ID cards. The Last-waker romps on campus in large groups, applies too much cologne or makeup, and thinks to spend five hundred bucks a day is ‘living cheaply’. Hoshakans, I see restlessness in your souls. Overcome, or you shall be condemned to be the despicable Last-waker.”
The Hoshakans blinked.
“Give us the Last-waker, O Zarathustra,” shouted someone, “and we shall make you a gift of the Overachiever.” And they laughed and clucked their tongues.
Zarathustra shook his head. “I am too early. My time has not yet arrived. Perhaps after the HoR collapses into irrelevance, after the Administration spends lakhs on purchasing some more pointless sculptures, after mere anarchy is loosed upon campus, I shall return.”
A heavily intoxicated student looking contemptuously at Zarathustra shouted, “Zarathustra, why are you so mean? Are we not doing enough already? You’re taut like a bow. Learn to relax. You should drink and enjoy like us. Just be happy.”
“What use have I of happiness?” spoke Zarathustra, “I have my work.”
A heavy silence befell the place. Zarathustra saw his words had an impact, for even the alcoholics put down their paper cups. They gathered around him. They realized Zarathustra was here for a purpose. He was not just a philosophy major on drugs.
“Why do you come to us, Zarathustra? Where are we headed?” someone asked from the herd.
Thus spoke Zarathustra, “I come to prevent you from heading towards the valley of the Last-waker, where you shall be a mere shadow of your true selves. There, in the valley, Hoshak will become the hedonist’s paradise, where work will be shunned and professors will be asked to give good grades regardless of performance. Individuals will feel safe speaking out only in anonymity, and tasks will be undertaken only so that they can be ended as soon as possible. When Hoshakans want to feel fraternity, they will create an Inclusivity Ministry, and when they want to feel love, they will consume substance. Respect will be superficial and camaraderie mere convenience.”
The music beats thrummed listlessly in the background, now just white noise. Hoshakans stood there, bewildered. What were they but the loud-mouthed, entitled, and snobby crowd that had successfully converted a space of radical development into a mere cog of the very mediocre system they claimed to hate so much?
“The Overachiever is your answer, Hoshakans,” boomed Zarathustra, “Become who you are!”
The first rays of sunlight pierced the scanty cloud cover and illuminated the shanty. Empty beer bottles and cigarette butts lay scattered on the ground. Fifty red-eyed Hoshakans stood transfixed on their spots. “O Zarathustra, does your Overachiever have a name? Whom do we aspire to?”
The serpent coiled on the staff hissed and the eagle perched on his shoulders spread its wings. Zarathustra slammed his staff on the ground.
“Yes, yes the Overachiever has a name. You shall overcome, and when you do, you shall be called Ashokans.”
Thus spoke Zarathustra.
Avici (01): Remembering Avicii and the State of EDM
Himali Thakur, Class of 2019
Last Friday, a shocking piece of news hit social media: Avicii had passed away. His representative released a statement later, which read: “It is with profound sorrow that we announce the loss of Tim Bergling, also known as Avicii…. He was found dead in Muscat, Oman this Friday afternoon local time, April 20th.” Bergling’s family has refused to reveal the cause for his demise, but foul-play has been ruled out by the Gulf Sultunate’s police. Regardless of the reason, there is no doubt that the European and American dance music scenes have lost a revolutionary with this incident.
In the 2000s, dance music producers began to carve out a space for themselves with the global audience. The phrase “Electronic Dance Music” (often abbreviated EDM) became a buzzword in the 2010s with the coming of progressive and electro house producers such as David Guetta, Swedish House Mafia, and Tiesto. Many of these artists had been producing tracks for well-known singers such as Black-Eyed Peas and Flo Rida, but didn’t rise to prominence until the late 2000s.
Avicii rose to prominence with this wave of EDM. He was picked up by the Dutch house producer Laidback Luke, after Avicii won a production competition hosted by BBC Radio One’s Pete Tong. Avicii’s 2011 hit, “Levels” peaked in dance music charts in UK, US, Germany, and Netherlands, among other countries, catapulting him to global fame. He was soon nominated for Best Dance Recording at the Grammy Awards: “Sunshine” with David Guetta (nominated 2012) and “Levels” (nominated 2013). In 2013, he also released “Wake Me Up”, the lead single from his debut album, True (2013). Despite the album’s departure from the “Big room house” sound that was all the rage in EDM at that point, True was well-received among fans and critics. In December of that year, Avicii even made his mark in India with a multi-city tour. Avicii followed his debut album with Stories (2015), and, most recently, the Avīci (01) EP in 2017. Around this time, he co-produced Coldplay’s hit songs “A Sky Full of Stars” (2014) and “Hymn for the Weekend” (2016).
The dance music community gave Avicii plenty of love, if his social media following and DJ Mag ratings are anything to go by. Avicii’s rise, however, did not take place in isolation. When he was rising, EDM, too, was soaring. If rap, punk, and rock were the pop of a decade ago, the happy burst of electronic music became the new anthem. In early 2010s, there were hosts of new producers like Hardwell, Afrojack, Martin Garrix, and KSHMR creating chart hits. The term “EDM” was made to embrace more than just the house and trance genres — it included deep, techno, dubstep, and trap.
Concurrently, festivals were getting bigger and bigger. India had mainstream producers like Armin Van Buuren, Hardwell, Martin Garrix, Above & Beyond headlining Sunburn, Supersonic, and EVC. Last year, Ultra Music Festival made its advent to India with the Road to Ultra installment; the Delhi edition was headlined by The Chainsmokers. Tomorrowland has been testing the waters with live screenings of its Belgium installment in major Indian cities since 2016. EDM has been gathering more fans, and more content to please every fan, waving its P.L.U.R. (Peace, Love, Unity, Respect) banners everywhere.
But what is the toll of all these gargantuan festivals? There are drug overdoses and drunken altercations haunting these “happy” places. Avicii becomes a segue to understanding the neon-coloured “live fast, die young” message of EDM. Back-to-back sets at big festivals, and the bigger parties every night eventually caught up with Avicii. Rumours of substance abuse were making the rounds on the Internet when Avicii cancelled some concerts in his 2014 tour. He cited health reasons — acute pancreatitis that needed immediate surgery. Apparently, alcohol abuse had exacerbated the problem. In 2016, Avicii completely quit touring, stating that it was taking a toll on his health, and he also wanted to focus on new music. Things started to look up when last week, Avicii’s 2017 EP, Avici (01), was nominated for the Billboard Music Awards for Best Electronic Album. Two days later, Avicii was found dead in a resort in Muscat, Oman, where he was supposed to be on a break.
The EDM community has a habit of generating a lot of self-loath. Every year, “experts” say that the genre has grown too big; the EDM bubble is about to burst and leave the genre(s) for dead. Whenever the controversial DJ Mag announces its Top DJ, there’s a backlash from non-mainstream producers (and in recent years, mainstream producers like Dillon Francis, Hardwell, 3LAU, and deadmau5) about how the voting is unfair and rigged, and the ranking doesn’t really make sense. But every year EDM comes bouncing back, hardly losing anything for all the criticism and the shit-flinging. Bergling’s death, however, may finally hold up a mirror to the adulterated ecstasy- and MDMA-fueled monster EDM is becoming. If nothing else, his demise should be the sign that EDM needs to become more self-aware, and look back at what it is leaving behind.
World War II through Cartoons
Aditya Khemka, Class of 2018
‘Only the dead have seen the end of war.’ — Plato
The intention of these articles are to chronicle the theatres of World War II, and the events on which the outcome of the war hinged. In an age when the television had still not taken over, newspaper reigned supreme. News consumption for the common man hinged on the printed word. These are some of the iconic cartoons from that era: cartoons which have set the hieroglyphic narrative for a generation, depicting events that now have entire books dedicated to it.
This shall be in two parts. This is the second part; it shall cover the progression of the World War after the bombing of Pearl Harbour, December 7, 1941. The first event covered is the Battle of Stalingrad. It shall cover the War till the atom bombs were deployed on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The first article covered the World War from 1933 to the bombing of Pearl Harbour.
- Stalingrad, 1942.
Stalingrad has been deemed the bloodiest battle of all time by some, and indeed it was. With the German offensive of Barbarossa (cartoon in first edition of the article) losing momentum, the Germans dug in for a siege of the city of Stalingrad. The siege was to be an endless one. Stalingrad witnessed the most gruesome fighting of the whole war, with door to door attacks, offensives which succeeded in winning ‘inches’ of territory, a harsh winter, a disease-stricken army and worst of all, no supplies. The Red Army had already started beating back the advancing Germans after the fierce tank battle of Kharkov, but Stalingrad lay in German hands. Commander Paulus of the Germans launched a huge offensive into the city, fighting for each and every inch, with the aim of capturing the city before the winter set in. His assault could go only upto the infamous Red October Factory on the banks of the Volga. The Red Army then amassed an army of which the likes had never been seen, with 900 tanks spearheading the attack. The siege-enforcer hence became the sieged. In a valiant and risky pincer-like movement, the Red Army succeeded in ending a yearlong war for the city of Stalingrad, which had raised it to the ground. This spelled the final gong for the Nazi Republic, as the Russians threw in the massive Red Army against them, slowly but steadily pushing towards the heart of Germany itself. Stalingrad changed the course of World War II, and sealed the fate of Hitler’s Germany.
2. El Alamein, The African Theatre of War
The Desert Fox, Erwin Rommel, had witnessed a highly successful desert campaign with the capture of Tobruk in 1942. Confidently, he broadcasted for ‘The ladies of Cairo to be ready for us tonight.’ The ladies never met them. Rommel had decided to bypass the bedraggled and worn garrison at El-Alamein, opting instead to lead his Afrika Korps straight into the Egyptian frontier, and leaving the Italians to take care of Alamein. He would have cursed himself later on to depend on the Italians, as by that very night, his advance had been halted by a combination of sandstorms, well-placed British artillery, and the garrison at Alamein. With field Marshall Montogomery at the helm, the British at Alamein made sure that Rommel’s luck had finally run out, preparing their defences to repel all assaults by Afrika Korps. When woken up and told of his army’s success, the eccentric Montogomery said, ‘Excellent, nothing could be better,’ and went back to sleep. A month later, Montogomery began with his own assault, having finally outmanoeuvred the Desert Fox in terms of size of the army. The losses on both sides were horrendous, with a single Battle for Kidney Ridge destroying 100 tanks of the Afrika Korps and 200 of the British XXX Armoured Division. The Battle of El-Alamein, decisive and tough, was finally won when Rommel had no option but to retreat with only 30 tanks left against 600 of the enemy, leaving the path open to the 11th Army. The Battle of El-Alamein began the decisive and strong push of Montogomery in the North Africa campaign, in which he finally secured the port of Tripoli, but could not stop the retreat of the Afrika Korps.
3. Battle of Midway Islands, Pacific Theatre.
The naval Battle of Midway was the decisive battle of the Pacific Theatre. Ironically, it was won and lost by the codebreakers, and was a naval confrontation where the opposing fleets never even saw each other. The Japanese launched a huge offensive on Midway Island, hoping to draw out the American fleet and annihilate it. Made vary of the Japanese plans, defences at Midway Island succeeded in holding off against the Japanese, messing up their plans. The Japanese were plagued by false intelligence and had no idea that the American convoy involved three US Carriers as well, and the very next day, the 4 carries accompanying the Japanese fleet were sunk by American dive bombers. With their carrier fleet crippled, the Japanese had no option but to withdraw their huge fleet. This marked the turning point, with the elimination of Japanese long range air capabilities, the US marines stormed the Japanese landholdings and began the long push back to Japan.
4. Operation Overlord or D-Day
Operation Overlord, or D-Day as it is better known, was, and still is, the largest and greatest seaborne invasion in the whole of military history, and is personally my favourite part of World War 2. Planned under the able leadership of General Dwight Eisenhower (future president of USA), D-Day was a massive operation involving Britain, USA, Canada, Free France and all of the Commonwealth nations, and which spanned three spheres of battle, airborne, paratrooper and seaborne, aimed at evicting the Germans from France and ultimately being the game changer for the Allies. With Rome already fallen to the US Fifth Army and the Red Army nearing Warsaw, Hitler was now faced with another battlefront in the west, and boy, was it massive. On a chilly and foggy morning of 6th June, 1944, the combined forces involving 6000 warships, 185,000 men and 20,000 vehicles approached the infamous beaches of Normandy, France and so the world witnessed the beginning of the end. Erwin Rommel was then the Field Marshall in France, and he was quite positive as to the strength of his Atlantic defence line. But his optimism was ill-found, as the German defences crumpled under the massive onslaught, facilitated by the capture of important bridges the day before through glider and paratrooper landings in the interiors of France. The beachheads started meeting up, and by 25 August, Paris was liberated befittingly by the French 2nd Armoured Division under General Leclerc. Another front was opened up through the landings at Cannes, and soon the Meditterenean front had also been liberated. But it was not all one way traffic. Feeling highly optimistic, Field Marshall Montogomery launched a daredevil plan codenamed Operation Market Garden for the capture of three key bridges in Netherlands in order to supplement the spear like movement of the ground troops. This airborne invasion was deemed a failure because the most important bridge (Arnhem) was unable to be captured and resulted in the death of 25,000 British Troops (I suggest my readers watch the star-studded ‘A Bridge too Far’ to appreciate the daredevilry of Operation Market Garden). D-Day was like a torch of reality for Hitler, and with the Red Army rampaging through the Balkans, it was only a matter of time before the great Deutschland itself, fell.
5. Operation in the Ardennes or the Battle of the Bulge
The Operation in the Ardennes or the Battle of the Bulge was a last-ditch attempt by Adolf Hitler to force open the noose tightening around his 1000-year Reich. With three armies left in reserve (the last ones, infact), Hitler handed the Operation to General Gerard Von Runstedt, to break through the weak point of the American frontline in the Ardennes forest, and race through to capture the vital port of Antwerp, thus separating Montogomery’s army from the Americans. Though they faced early victories, the Germans were soon held up by pockets of resistance and slow supply lines. The iron-like Field Marshall Patton promised Eisenhower that his army would provide the required support to the affected areas near Bastogne, and despite the odds being stacked against him, he did just that. With the weather clearing and the Allies getting support from the omnipresent RAF and US Air Force, it was only a matter of time before the Battle of the Bulge came to an end with the verdict being German defeat. The move to loosen the noose around Berlin had done nothing but tighten it.
6. Hitler’s Retreat
With his forces retreating on all sides, his armies shattered on all fronts, his invaded territory taken back everywhere, Hitler was now facing imminent defeat. His trusted officers had deserted him, and he himself was stuck in his bunker beneath Berlin, day in and day out, as the Red Army pounded the city to ruins. The situation was so desperate that 12 year old boys were defending the city against the fierce Red Army. Hitler still lived in disillusionment, confident that a non-existent force was on its way to liberate the city and push back the aggressors. No one around him was brave enough to tell him the truth. On 30th April, after nine days of bitter fighting, the Reichstag fell, and the Soviet flag flew across high above the centre of Hitler’s power, Berlin. On that very day, the great Adolf Hitler committed suicide along with his wife and Goebbels, and the Third Reich which was supposed to last for a 1000-years was shattered. The war in Europe was declared officially over on 8 May, 1945, with the German surrender, and the Allies rejoiced VE Day. The North Africa chapter, the Atlantic chapter and the Europe chapter were closed, but the land of the Rising Sun still stood, unwilling to negotiate for peace.
7. ‘Fat Man’ and ‘Little Boy’ on Hiroshima and Nagasaki
On a clear day, 6th August 1945, with the war already at an end in Europe, the world was changed forever, as the USAAF Enola Gay captained by Tibbets dropped the inconveniently named ‘Little Boy’ nuclear bomb on the city of Hiroshima, wiping it from the face of the Earth. 3 days later, the same fate met the city of Nagasaki when the conveniently named ‘Fat Man’ wiped this city too, from the face of the Earth. Combined casualties tolled upto millions, with millions not expected to live for the next 5 years, as the poisonous radiation sweeps through the atmosphere. On 14 August, 1945, World War 2 officially came to an end with the unconditional surrender of Japan, thus bringing to close a 6 year long chapter which had devastated millions of lives and changed the face of humanity for ever.
The war to end all wars? Not quite so. For it is the way of the world, until humanity lives, so will strife, so will war, so will devastation. Then why to bother about World War II, you ask? The World War II led to a new and formidable power of the nuclear weapon; to the formation of the Iron Curtain and the subsequent Cold War, but it has also not allowed any conflict to affect the whole of humanity again. In a new era of cooperation, the lessons of War still hold true, and will hold true for ages to come, for, as the monument of Auschwitz says, ‘Never Again.’
Cartoons for the article are taken from Mark Bryant’s book “World War 2 in Cartoons.” The Edict would like to make a call for more such pieces from the social science departments at Ashoka.
Aditya Khemka is in his final semester at Ashoka University. He has added the coveted tag of ‘Oxon’ to his current tag of ‘Ashokan’. He has been accepted to pursue Financial Economics at Oxford University. When he’s not thinking of money, he reads about History, Strategy and Political Economy. To that end he’s engaged in board game and video game simulations as well.
Know Your Professor: Hemanshu Kumar
Sindhoora Ganesh and Siddhant Sachdeva, Class of 2019
“Life is as much about planning as it is about chance. Perhaps it is much more chance than planning, and it might be entirely by chance that I got into Economics”, says Professor Hemanshu Kumar, Assistant Professor of Economics at Ashoka. Having taught at Ashoka for almost a year now, he chose this institution as it was his first choice to teach in India. He has taught in the US before, and also in India in a study abroad program. He was always on the lookout for a place where he could exercise the freedom to decide his own course and teach something that excited him. Finding Ashoka a “nice combination of a place where I could look forward to teaching as well as a place that takes research very seriously”, it suited his needs perfectly.
Although the reason of liberal arts is a cliche, Professor feels it really helps broaden one’s perspective to have interdisciplinarity within one’s college by interacting with people from other disciplines and learning from them. He believes that Ashoka combines the best of interdisciplinaria and an ideal teaching methodology, and also takes research very seriously; all of which were important for it being his ideal preference. Professor Hemanshu had a mainly economics-based education right from his college-days. At Ashoka, he takes a course in Econometrics because he says that the subject is not just something he uses himself in his research, but also something he feels is an important tool for students in today’s world, a world where a lot more data is becoming available. His preferred area of study is that of identity, specifically caste-based studies. He feels people often generalize and conflate the different categories of castes, instead of delving deeper into the actual, various castes that exist. Being an under-researched topic under the scope of economics, caste really interests Prof. Kumar and he feels drawn to studying it. Another reason he is drawn to this topic can be traced back to a year of his life after returning from the US. At the time, he was certain about pursuing economics, but wasn’t sure what exactly to do within the discipline. At around the same time, a lot of civil societies were struggling to obtain the right to work. Through some friends, he got drawn into this project which required him to go on a yatra, stepping into the ‘field’ for the very first time. Going to actual villages really helped give him the perspective he needed and shaped his current research interest. He says, “there is a certain vitality to spending time in the field and really seeing with fresh eyes the world as is, rather than just through the lens of other people”. Despite his vast educational background, he still feels the “spaces between your education are really what educate you the most”.
Prof. Hemanshu has fond memories of his school days, being one of those students who genuinely enjoyed studying and whose interest in a subject was affected greatly by how well it was taught by a particular teacher. His school had a certain discipline and moral code to it, promoting inclusion and equality, which really helped form his personality and give him values that he incorporates not only in his life in general but in his research as well. Despite not having studied economics in school at all, he believes his choice of studying it was influenced mostly by the onset of 1991 liberalization in India and its increased appearance in the news at the time. A public speaker since childhood, Professor Hemanshu was also the Convener of the Conservation Club of his school. He used to enjoy learning Indian Classical Music and continues to be an avid listener of music today. He is drawn towards music from the ’60s, and the movies he likes and dislikes are mostly based on the kind of music produced in them. His only regret has been that he did not continue music and did not learn a musical instrument.
After spending four years abroad, where he constantly missed desi food, he spent almost a year going to high-end restaurants of Delhi with one of his friends on coming back to India. In this process, he felt something was missing. It dawned on him that he missed the authentic street food of Delhi, and that marked the beginning of a new Food Critic Phase in his life for almost 5–6 years. He started a group on Orkut where he found people with similar interests and passion for food. Professor Hemanshu had an active blog from 2006–2009 where he wrote about the food in offbeat places and streets of Delhi. He does not have any particular favorite dish, but according to him, there is always a sense of nostalgia that is associated with home food and dishes eaten during one’s childhood. He has this feeling with regard to North Indian food because he grew up in North India, and he is extremely fond of the food served in the original Moti Mahal in Darya Ganj.
Professor Hemanshu also likes binge-watching Netflix and following documentaries. He binges on one show, like how he did for the Game of Thrones series, and then moves on to another show. He follows The Crown, Designated Survivor, and Mozart in the Jungle, the music of which he appreciates. Jean Drèze has been an inspiration and ideal for Professor Hemanshu. He recalls the time spent he with Drèze during a campaign around 2005, when the National Rural Employment Act was passed. He recommends Drèze’s book “Sense and Solidarity” to all. New Zealand is one place he wants to visit and explore, which he thinks is the ‘Lord of The Rings’ effect on him. He also loves trekking and being in the mountains, be it in India or in Europe. When we asked him where he saw himself ten years down the life, he said that he doesn’t really want to get anywhere specific. He enjoys where he is and does not need any big transformation in life. He wants to be able to teach, do good research, and have a leisurely time.
Professor Hemanshu strongly believes in inclusion in the context of Ashoka. He feels that there are a lot of unaddressed aspects of exclusion which needs to be taken up by both the faculty and students of Ashoka. He is of the belief that it will definitely make the University richer since Ashoka has already managed to put together some great students and faculty. He says that intellectual life gets handicapped without inclusion. He also thinks that Ashoka is a very promising place at an incubation stage, transforming every year. When we asked him what message he would like to give students, he said, “Don’t over-plan.” He observes a very similar hyperactivity in students here at Ashoka as he saw in the students during his time in the US, which he feels is a great thing since it provides a chance to push oneself, but also has the risk of getting the student over-stressed. He underscored the necessity of taking time out for oneself, saying that this was a unique time in life, not only with freedom and independence but also as the time for brain development. He strongly feels that sometimes it is best to leave things unplanned and just let things happen. After all, he says, “Life is a series of short-runs.”
Professor Hemanshu Kumar is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Ashoka University.
Know Your Professor: Ajit Mishra
Priyanka Shankar and Diksha Lahoti, Class of 2019
Coming from a small town in Odisha, Professor Ajit Mishra did not particularly have too many big dreams or ambitions. Sports, debating, and reading were the only sources of entertainment for him. He fondly remembers the common library in Bolangir, near Cuttack, Odisha, as a popular center for catching up with friends. He tells us that the last time he visited Bolangir, the library was nowhere to be seen. “One of the many effects of the internet. Now, we (Bolangir) have of course become more internet friendly”, he says, reminiscing.
Professor was not always a student of economics. Economics was not the ‘in’ thing during his time, he says. After completing his Pre-University (Grades 11 and 12), he flirted with the idea of doing Engineering briefly before dropping out to pursue Economics. He decided to pursue Economics as he was told it was the ‘most quantitative and logic-based subject’ in the social sciences. It helped that he was already in love with mathematics. After completing his undergraduate degree in Ravenshaw University, he went on to do a Masters in Delhi School of Economics (DSE), did research at the University of Cambridge and later came back to DSE. When we asked him if becoming a Professor was always on the chart, he reminds us of the age-old Indian fascination with the Indian Administrative Service (IAS). However, having cleared the prelims of the UPSC exam (the first step to enter the IAS), he lost all interest in it while preparing for the ‘mains’. He taught at the Shri Ram College of Commerce and then worked in the Planning Commission for a while before deciding to complete a Ph.D. to pursue academia as a career.
He has been a Professor in the University of Bath, UK, since 2007, and a Visiting Faculty at Ashoka University since 2016. We asked him the evident differences he notices among students of Ashoka and students of Bath. He told us that students from Bath are more ‘mature’, in the sense that they use their resources justifiably and know what they want, while students at Ashoka are more ‘respectful’. He adds, however, that this wasn’t a fair comparison, as he teaches 3rd and 4th year-students at Bath and 2nd year-students at Ashoka. He added that both sets of students are comparable on an intellectual level. Further, he mentions that he enjoys his time here in Sonipat because of the enthusiasm he sees in students.
Professor Mishra’s primary field of research is developmental economics, and given a chance, he says he would love to teach the subject. He added that if he were to drift away from his research field to teach a course, it would have to be a course on Political Economics. He also told us that had he been in a different environment and put under the right kind of pressure, he might have ended up becoming a scientist. Talking about his recent research interests, he listed down his past three projects on corruption, negative reciprocity, and measurement of vulnerability.
While discussing our summer plans, we asked Professor what he would do had he been in our position. He tells us that if he were to use his experience over the years as an economist and then put himself in our shoes, he would probably not be obsessed with the idea of attending a summer school. He considers the quality of the course being offered to be a more important factor than just the pure reputation of the university offering it. He would have preferred to do an independent research project considering the long summer break we Ashokans get.
We also asked Professor what his hobbies and interests were, and what he does in his free time. He is an avid reader of both fiction and non-fiction, although he says he hasn’t read a good fiction book in a while. Do-It-Yourself ideas, fixing and creating new items also interests him. He is also a big fan of travelling; though he is quick to add that he is not adventurous enough to venture into countries where the majority of the population do not speak English (or any other familiar language).
Professor Mishra finds the combinations in the mess food funny, commenting on how they give Indian with Italian on the same day in the same meal! He says, otherwise, considering the scale of food made, the mess food is good, although he generally prefers making his own meals. Professor Mishra mentioned that he makes really good pasta!
Professor Mishra’s advice to all those there who are novices in the field of research is to “ask questions, simple questions”. He goes on to explain how asking simple questions about things around you and using simple methods for research, not necessarily mathematical analysis, can help one create a good research project.
Favorite movie (among the recent ones)- Dangal
Favorite book (in economics)- Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty by Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson
Favorite genre of Music- Indian Classical and Instrumental
Professor Ajit Mishra is a Visiting Professor of Finance at Ashoka University. He takes the second half of the FIN101-Introduction to Finance course every Spring Semester.
Talking to KC and Urvin: The Inception of APL
Avneesh Garimella, Class of 2019
As the Ashoka Premier League (APL) 3.0 is set to begin on the 20th of April, the entire campus is buzzing with excitement over the event. From the auction to late night practices by the teams, APL is as big an event as any other in Ashoka. I decided to track down the source of this event, the two founders, KC Sachin and Urvin Soneta, and have a conversation with them about APL and its origins.
KC(3rd Year) and Urvin(ASP) were the founders of the first APL, and when I asked them about the origins of APL they first took me through why they thought there was a need for such an event in the first place. The lack of enthusiasm among the general Ashoka community and the lack of engagement with sports was what spurred KC and Urvin into considering such an event. The batch of 2018 came in and the state of sports was still the same as before, and it was then that they seriously began to consider organising an event that would not only help improve the sporting culture on campus but also be an event for non-athletes to participate in, such as the rest of the student body, staff and faculty. “The idea was to have an event that was glamourous and spread across the campus and not just the sporting community” says KC. The tournament also helped to increase the playing time for the football team. At the time, the football team used to play only one tournament for which a year of training was put in and hence the APL provided an avenue for them to showcase the skills that they had been working hard to hone.
An interesting part of story was how the idea began to take shape. During their winter break in their second year, they didn’t have any concrete plan and had only talked about it informally but at the end of the break, Urvin got a call from KC, while he was traveling in an auto, and was asked to check his email. KC had made a presentation about the entire process, from the auction to getting funding to the actual rules itself. In Urvin’s words “It was one of the best presentations” he had seen. A particularly impressive consequence of the APL was its ability to connect people across batches. This was in part because of how the entire event was marketed by them and how the money was utilized, especially the auction in which it was more about selecting the best available players and not just choosing one’s friends and so on, as KC stated. Urvin and KC both call the APL their baby, especially from an organizational point of view, given the number of hours of work and effort that they had invested in the event.
The biggest obstacle they had faced involved securing funds for such an event. They weren’t sure of how to get the money as both of them envisioned the event to be self-sustaining. Minor problems did arise, as it happens with all events, but the team has always been able to deal with it and learnt from any mistake they had made.
KC and Urvin are pleased at how the event has turned out so far and KC does feel that the event has turned out how he had envisioned it. The large scale of it was what caught Urvin off guard as he didn’t expect it to be so big across the campus. They both have big plans for APL, which involve it becoming the biggest event on campus, and the money that APL being donated to various charitable causes. They excitedly talk about how it is for them to witness APL 3.0 currently, with all the team practices, the large auction and the intensity of everyone involved in it.
When asked about what led to the event being such a success, they both believe it was their attention to detail and the amount of care they have shown for the event. It was extremely important to them to keep everyone happy, from the players, owners, vendors and even the audience. It involved a lot of planning as well as, such as anticipating what problems could occur and preparing for such eventualities, “Like giving the audience Odomos” jokes Urvin. The biggest reward, says KC, is when people come after the event and talk about how much they enjoyed it, especially the people who come to watch. The moment that stuck with both of them was when the event took placed the first time, the audience numbered around 200. That was the first time there were so many people viewing a sporting event, with about half the people on campus turning up. This was what defined success for them as it showed that they had succeeded in bringing people into the sports culture and creating the sort of campus atmosphere they had wanted.
The impact of APL on sports in Ashoka has been beyond what they expected. They spoke about how so many people play sports recreationally daily on campus, with cage football matches taking place all the time, and how this has produced a knock-on effect for other sports too. APL according to them has showed people a way to spend time doing something productive, that provides avenues to relax and take a break in general instead of turning to harmful activities. Though the APL is a completely student-run event, they mentioned how the Sports department has been extremely supportive of it and has provided any help they required at any point of time and has actively provided guidance whenever necessary.
Capping the interview, KC and Urvin spoke about how Kabir Singh and Adhiraj Srivastav have done a great job with APL 3.0 while also taking the opportunity to thank the team that helped them set up the inaugural APL which included Sourya Reddy, Chirag Chinnappa, Zoheb Bedi, Nikhilesh Prakash, Kanishk Srinivasan, Jayanti Jha, Ajay Sabharwal, Ritwik Mohanty and Shashwat Ghatiwala. They look forward to this event being a success for as long as Ashoka exists and are immensely proud of having started something as big as the APL.
The APL will take place on Friday and Saturday evening, on the football field, with some old and some new teams battling it out for bragging rights and the sizeable prize money. Make sure you’re there to watch some great football, and what will probably be the legendary Sourya Reddy’s last few moments on the Ashoka field!
Swarnamalya Ganesh and a Brief History of Bharatanatyam
Himali Thakur, Class of 2019
For most of us, Bharatanatyam is the classical dance form that defines Indian culture and allows for little re-invention within its rigid boundaries. Last week, Swarnamalya Ganesh visited Ashoka University for a lecture-demonstration and completely disturbed that perception. “A post-colonial creation of Bharatanatyam as exclusively ‘Indian culture’,” is what she calls it. “We are constantly told to go back to our roots”, she says. However, these “normative” practices did not exist in Bharatanatyam’s recent, and rich, evolutionary past.
Swarnamalya Ganesh is a known Sadir (Bharatanatyam) dancer, dance historian, choreographer, and tutor. Her research into dance history focuses on reconstructing lost Bharatanatyam practices and repertoires. Currently, Ganesh is engaged in the project “From the Attic”, a series of performance-projections that draws from her academic work to bring to light the evolutionary and changing nature of Bharatanatyam over the years. “A Peek Inside the Attic”, as the lecture-demonstration at Ashoka University was aptly titled, provided a taste of these sessions to the attendees.
Ganesh’s interest in dance history had been there for as long as she performed, but it was when she was working on her Master’s in Bharatanatyam that she stumbled on the lost repertoires of the Nayak era. “At first I thought, ‘They ruled the Tamil country for two hundred-odd years. What could they have really contributed?’” The Nayak rulers of Vijayanagara were contemporaries of the medieval Mughal rulers. This time is traditionally considered “a period of decline for Bharatanatyam”. However, in the course of her research, Ganesh found that the Nayak court’s contribution to contemporary Bharatanatyam was immense; she recovered nearly thirty-four repertoires from this immediate past. Many of these practices had clear Persian influences. “What was astounding was how these cultures (the Mughal/Islamic and the Deccan/Hindu) merged,” she says. “Art changed with political shifts of the time.” Ganesh makes her arguments by using textual traditions, but also sculptures and paintings of that represent practices of Bharatanatyam of that era. She believes that this interdisciplinary approach is inevitable due to the rich multicultural and interdisciplinary nature of Bharatanatyam itself.
Ganesh explains that the exchange of dance forms was probably an active method of communication between royalties. Bharatanatyam would have been a part of these exchanges, too. It was used for diplomacy and also a kind of cultural conquest. “When messengers came to you from another kingdom, you performed the dance of their place to entertain them, but also to display the cultural prowess of your own ruler and culture,” explains Swarnamalya. There was a “we can do it as well as you” sentiment to it.
When patronage moved from temples to rich dubashes, courts, and the “firangis” that came in, Bharatanatyam had to adapt to shifting demands. Bharatanatyam was performed in different spaces with a diverse audience, resulting in amalgams of different languages for the lyrics. Performers also had to adapt to the demand for quick and captivating dances to draw in the audience, leading to the development of a form called the “javali”. This fluidity of the pre-colonial Bharatanatyam exemplifies, what Ganesh calls, the dance’s “cosmopolitan identity”.
To illustrate this cosmopolitan identity, Ganesh gives the example of a javali in the Kharaharapriya raga, “Oh My Lovely Lalana” by Karur Shivaramayya. It’s a Telugu composition incorporating phrases from English. Ganesh dances to demonstrate this composition with extraordinary grace and precision. She pauses now and then to explain the meaning of the lyrics or to point out certain interesting overlaps. Ganesh even sings the composition to us; her clear voice negotiates the notes smoothly. We, the audience, are awestruck by this. Ganesh casually explains that the Bharatanatyam dancers of old, the devadasis, would have been well-versed with the vocals. “The devadasis sang as they performed,” says Ganesh. She sees this as another manifestation of the interdisciplinary nature of Bharatanatyam. It is only with the advent of specialisation in today’s day that vocals and the dancer are separated.
After her lecture demonstration, Ganesh sat down with The Edict to hear her views on Bharatanatyam and how it is shaped in today’s world.
Himali: I want to start with the question of the normative that you brought up. You said that you’d like to move out of that the normative. So, how do you work with that in your pedagogy?
Swarnamalya: When I started doing my research, the pedagogical change had to come about. I discovered this with the very first composition that I was reconstructing, the Mukhachali (a precursor of today’s alarippu) repertoire. When the beginning stance changed, everything changed along with it. And there is also a deeper understanding that all of these dances are structured within different cultures. So, this changed the way I looked at my practice.
It was also important for me to keep in mind what Bharatanatyam is today because you are tracing back, you have to keep in mind what has finally come about. It is important for me to keep in touch with my base and to say, “This is how that has become this.”
So, yes, for me, the pedagogy evolved with my research, because I was looking at it from the multiculturality of it.
You talked about the political and historical influences on Bharatanatyam through the ages. How do you see Bharatanatyam responding to the global context today?
I think Bharatanatyam already has like I said because Bharatanatyam is so cosmopolitan, contrary to the idea of pinning it to the classical and saying that it is unchanging. I think the definition of “classical” itself must change. If the idea of the classical is that it is structured or rigid, then Bharatanatyam is none of it. It has changed so much. Today, because it has this global visibility, how much it has changed — the costumes, lighting. Without Bharatanatyam’s ability to adapt, would it be possible for a Rukmini Devi to have an Italian seamstress making Bharatanatyam costumes? Or to have theatre lighting for Bharatanatyam? Or to accommodate the enormous changes over time? So many dances have contributed to those changes. The Bharatanatyam today, that is consumed by the Western audience, is vastly different. You’ve made it into these small consumable pockets. That you can do so means that you are cosmopolitan.
How do you think performance has changed for you over the years? How do you keep re-inventing yourself?
For me, it has changed vastly. Like I said, all those questions that I had in my mind as a mere practitioner, I was soon able to make some enquiries towards those. The minute I started making those enquiries, I had informed knowledge. I won’t say I have deviated from what I was taught. What the enquiry enabled me to do was reinstate my faith in what I was taught. You see, my gurus had already taught me this very thing about Bharatanatyam and its fluidity. My guru (Smt. K J Sarasa) was a hereditary artist. She had such an amazing ability to assimilate from wherever and make it a popular art. If you look at it from the point of view of this classical burden, you’ll never be able to understand how my guru was able to do it. After my informed understanding, of why and how Bharatanatyam has over time been so absorbing, I can better appreciate what I was and the way I was taught. I am also able to make those infiltrations in reviving certain compositions, bringing them back to life — informing my student body about how inclusive this art form is.
You have also performed in films and TV shows. How has dance influenced your performance in that field? Do these “performances” leak into each other?
They do. It’s so organic that one can hardly ever. . . Acting is not dance, but I am sure they give and take from each other. I have been a dancer for far longer than I have been an actor. My entire life my work can be described as very interdisciplinary, be it within music, dance, theatre, or acting. To stand in isolation as “I am only an actor” or “I am only a dancer” would be foolhardy.
Do you think that the film industry, as it is today, can do justice to dance?
It depends. The film industry is such a vibrant space that with just one film, trends can change. If there is one informed director, who wishes to create something. . . They don’t have to make a documentary for the justification of dance. As I said, dance is so cosmopolitan that it can be there for popular consumption. It takes a very intelligent and committed mind. And a producer who backs them up! My hopes aren’t too high, but it is not impossible.
Do you feel that as a woman artist, you have a certain role to fulfil?
Certainly. You know all these women, the devadasis, all of them have been very empowered from within the system. They were definitely a part of the patriarchy, but they were negotiating from within. All of us are the same that way. None of us is outside the system. We are trying to create a space from within the system. And they’ve had better access. They have been able to do it much better than women who are not from the community.
Leading by that example, I think art is a very powerful tool and combined with the kind of agency we get through education, we have a very strong role to play, and we must. I think everything I do — even the Kshetrayya Padam that entrenches you in a male gaze — can be a strong feminist voice because I am creating an agency for a woman to express herself. The content is very explicit and sexual, and if a woman can do that in the open, there is something very liberating about that. There are different kinds of feminism. I am a professor of Gender Studies, so I talk about this every day to my students. You don’t need to have these particular forms of feminism to be identified as a feminist. Today, feminism is about lending the voice — or not even lending the voice — feminism is about accepting that the subaltern has a voice.
Varsha: There are so many styles in Bharatanatyam like Kalakshetra and Pandanallur. With Kalakshetra and Pandanallur you have the association of the strict, “no curves”, and all of that. How did that come about?
I would urge you not to club together Pandanallur and Kalakshetra. Pandanallur is very different from what it is portrayed today. Pandanallur bani is an older, traditional school of. . . These schools, these banis are not really watertight. They give and take repertoires. They have very common repertoires. Like the Thanjavur Quartet compositions were a mainstay for the Pandanallur. But these banis evolved more because of geographical boundaries. If a few gurus taught from Pandanallur, they made a few stylistic additions that came to stay, and later on, we called them “bani”. We are in the urban; we have no bani. Chennai has no bani. You just have all these different influences.
Kalakshetra is a product of the “normative” practice. Even though Rukmini Devi Arundale started it post-colonially, she began normative practices around the 1930s, where she said that “I am going to change the face of this form. I am going to make it a non-hereditary performing art.” So she chiselled out of it the style we know today. So, this is the product of a few urban minds, which is why I feel that a large part of Bharatanatyam’s vitality has been lost. But this is no offence to her; Rukmini Devi was a visionary of a certain nature, who was able to envision dance for global consumption. But how? What of it has been consumed? Only a very tiny, small, sliver of it.
And now we’ve come to a point where we’ve come to a saturation point. Now what? Now, I am saying that what we’ve left behind is large. Because essentially everything that we performed as everything that they, the devadasis, performed. It’s old wine and new bottle — new bottle being the non-hereditary body. The levels of consumption are the same. You have only taken out small chips, whatever you think is good for your global or national positioning. So, bani is a very fluid thing, but I do subscribe to cultural identities. So, if Vazhuvoor’s style has a certain few stylistic additions, as a student of that bani, it’s wonderful if I retain it because that legacy has the cultural identity of that space.
Varsha: When people in research now say that Bharatanatyam has Persian influence, what has been the response from people who say that there are certain rights and wrongs to Bharatanatyam? Or that Bharatanatyam is a certain way and comes from a certain place?
If you are somebody who believes that Bharatanatyam is exclusively Hindu and, even more exclusively, high caste, it will be difficult. If you believe that it was once with the devadasis, the “derogated lot”, and then you resurrected it — because that’s the word often us — you gave it its “respectability” then it is very difficult for you to traverse the pathway of this corridor I am showing. I am saying there’s Gujrati, Maharashtrian influence. Even that may not be a problem for them, but the minute you say Persian and that Bharatanatyam has accommodated something foreign like English! They feel that they have been “invaded” into the identity that they have built. That’s where my strong historical and academic base comes in because I am not speaking off the top of my head. I come to you with evidence. Unless you can counter it, unless I am proven wrong I am right.
So, when I present “From the Attic”, which is based on sound historical research, it is planned as a storytelling session. There is all this evidence that I place in front of the people before the performance. That is when people can consume the performance with an open mind. If you are sitting there and wondering, “What? Persian? How?”, you can’t enjoy it. I need to do that even for my students, these young girls who come for a dose of “Indian Culture” — because that’s how people consume it. You think that your child will be disciplined into “Hindu Ways”. To that mind, how do you tell it that it is far more inclusive? It is all of that; it is Hindu, it does give you discipline. But, ti also gives you the larger vision to look at the world as a connected globe. That, I think, is far more rich to be passing on to the next generation than teaching them how to put a bindi. I am telling them that this is also Indian culture. You know, people didn’t travel to Iran and bring Persian. It’s not like I found an Iranian musician and got them to collaborate with me. It’s here! They travelled to Kayalpatnam. In your village, this happened.
So, the context of the performance governs the performance itself. It allows you to have a sense of history. By doing this, I have been able to bring into the fold Bharatanatyam viewers and performers non-traditional participants. The minute I talk about the Persian and Islamic influence, then I have a new audience, who feels a sense of belonging. You can never be an audience if it doesn’t mean anything to you. I have a larger audience thanks to the inclusivity of Bharatanatyam itself.
edict backup 