Attending the Handia Kathak Mahayagya: November 2011

Ranan and Samskritiki Shreyaskar members with Pt. Birju Maharaj and Smt. Saswati Sen

Senior students of Brindar - Ranan's Kathak training wing - attended and performed at the first Handia Kathak Mahayagya organised by Pandit Birju Maharaj and Smt. Saswati Sen through Kalashram. The Brindar students were accompanied by Debashree Bhattacharya under whom they have trained.

Samskritiki Shreyaskar, Smt. Rani Karnaa's academy - Smt. Karnaa being Debahsree's guru - was also represented and the whole group presented two generations of students and performers trained in her personal style of Kathak. 

Debosmita Roychowdhury, Indudipa Sinha, Surasree Kundu and Surangama Majumdar write in on their experience.

Debosmita and Indudipa at Handia

Debosmita Roychowdhury

Well, I’ve been asked to submit a report about HANDIA KATHAK MAHAYAGYA EXPERIENCE…but I have not got much to describe about the whole journey and it will be a complete waste of time if I write down what happened throughout the journey... everyone knows the details. But there were certain moments, I felt, which in my words could be called as rare experiences, and I desire to share those.

We reached Allahabad on the last day i.e. on 18^th November, and were very much unfortunate to have just one day in hand to attend the workshop. After going through a straight 15 h our train journey, we were very much disgusted and then again another thought of travelling a 35km journey to attend the workshop without a minimum bit of rest started to haunt us then and there. Anyway, while we were thinking all of this, suddenly bliss showered upon us as we met an awesome charismatic person who broke the ice and made everything very soothing. The person is none other than Pandit Birju Maharaj. You can call it a magic or like I said, heavenly bliss that all my tiredness had gone within moments.

Thereafter, we reached the place, HANDIA and saw the workshop had already started. We learned some new bols, ginti, tehai. The style they taught us was very different from ours, but we tried our best to do it in our own way.

Now in the evening, we performed “Vilambit Teentaal”. The performance started from 6 pm till midnight. While watching the performances a lot of questions arose in my mind that evening. The first of the few were,

“What am I doing?”

“Why am I wasting my guru’s time?”

“Do I really love dance?”

“Do I worship it?”

“How much time do I give to dance in a whole day?”

“Can I ever dance like them?”

I thank God that these questions did not affect my performance. I thank my guru, Debashree Bhattacharya on her discretion to have provided me with a platform like HANDIA. The evening concluded with Maharaj-ji’s performance and it was a treat for us to watch him performing live on stage.

The next day when Maharaj-ji inquired about me from my guru, it was a huge achievement for me. He by himself came to me and blessed me by telling few words which still vibrate in my ears… “kabhi dance mat chhorna beta… bohut aage jaoge tum…”. I know that I’ve been noticed by him because I’m slightly different from others, but that day for the first time I really felt lucky and I understood the reason of me being in there – and may be that it was the only reason.

Indudipa Sinha

Day-1 (16/11/2011)

We reached Allahabad in the morning and finally went to Handia at around 2pm with other Kathak dancers from different parts of India. Today we could attend only the last part of the workshop. But it was a great experience to learn Kathak directly from Birju Maharaj-ji, whatever the duration may be.

After lunch we went to the original place situated at an extreme part of the village where the creators of the Lucknow gharana of Kathak used to live.

I felt myself lucky to observe the spectrums of performances of some of the leading Kathak dancers of our country.

Day-2 (17/11/2011)

As per schedule, we reached Handia which is 40 km away from Allahabad at around 10am. After breakfast, we had a session of basic Kathak movements under the guidance of Kishan Maharaj-ji and Shaswati-ji. Then we were fortunate to learn some tukra, ginti ki tehai, tora and various types of tehai from Maharaj-ji. The entire session was very well organised by the volunteers of Kalashram.

In the afternoon, we had a screening session which included the performances of Kelucharan Mahapatra, Yamini Krishnamurti, Radha and Raja Reddy, Damayanti Joshi, Sitara Devi, Mrinalini Sarabhai, Krishnamohan-ji and many more. Also we had a film session showing remarkable dance performances in some films like Umrao Jaan (by Rekha), Jalsaghar (by Roshan Kumari), Mughal-e-azam (by Madhubala), Dil to Pagal Hai (by Madhuri), Jhanak Jhanak Payel Baje (by Gopikishan), Shataranj ke Khilari (by Shaswati Sen) and many more.

Then we experinced some lecture-demonstrations by Roshan Datye, Chetna Jalan, Ravi Jain and many more. They depicted their respective gharana and style created by their gurus.

Evening performances were stunning in their own way.

Day-3 (18/11/2011)

We enjoyed morning workshop, film session and seminar as previous days.

Today we had our own performance which included a piece set to Vilambit Tintaal choreographed and conceived by  our guru Smt. Debashree Bhattacharya. She performed Kedar Raas with Sohini Debnath. Samila & Sreyashi performed Trivatt.  It was really a lifetime experience to step into such an arena of Kathak. We got a very positive response from audience which made us speechless. We all are heartily grateful to our guru Debashree Bhattacharya who is solely responsible for all this.

Day-4 (19/11/2011)

We ended our tour after meeting Pt. Birju Maharaj-ji today morning and spent some time with him. That is such a memory which will always refuse to fade. The whole tour will surely be a source of inspiration in future.

Brindar students performing at Handia

Surasree Kundu

Surasree at Handia

Surangama Majumdar

Surangama at Handia

Few days ago, Kathak Mahayagga was held in Handia and I am very lucky that I could attend the workshop which was built up under the guidance of Maharaj-ji. Maharaj-ji illustrated gati bhab (varieties of movements) which was fantastic. I learned some beautiful bol, tihai, ginti. As i joined the workshop at very last day I missed some interesting sessions. Video session offered some edited parts of art film, documentaries using Kathak dance. There were special sessions where dancers performed their different styles and I performed Vilambit Teental choreographed by my guru Debashree Bhattacharya. It was a beautiful experience of my life that I will remember forever.