A Judgement

Today’s blog comes from a friend’s verdict on me yesterday after a minor/maybe a major altercation with him over a trivial personal issue but unfortunately placed at  a time of the turbulent milieu of my high passion and severe frustration of running a classical dance journal Nartanam. A journal which is highly respected in dance and academic circles, but costs a handsome packet of money in publishing it every quarter of an year; which many want it almost free of cost or complementary. Paying for a subscription of thousand Indian rupees per annum is a terrible expense (discounted price is Rs 750 only, which one spends in one evening watching a movie…); that is not the issue under discussion…. It is that no dancer or dance student has the time to read. Reading on dance by a dancer (though sastra is an integral part of learning and viewing dance) is only when a newspaper carries a review of her/his performance or when Nartanam publishes an article with a picture of the dancer. Many have expressed that if dance is presented in the format of a film news magazine, maybe they would be interested in reading.

Back and Front page of the latest issue of Nartanam- A special on the great Kutiyattam exponent
Late Guru Mani Madhava Chakyar

 Coming back to the verdict of my dear friend; it was, “You have no sense of decorum. You have been really damaged by your past with many complexes….Therefore all your Yoga has not helped you.”

Indeed it has set me thinking.... if I am unable to maintain dignity and decorum in my day to day life and in my efforts to pursue my love; then it is no love at all… especially the love of classical arts…. 

One does not make public, one's troubled past which many of us have in one way or the other locked away…. barring a few who by virtue of a silver spoon of high birth or fortune may never have had a trouble in their entire lives. To be fair to the people in my life …. I shall maintain the anonymity of the alcoholic who is supposed to have damaged my past and induced in me, many complexes…. But I will not shy away from mentioning that I was indeed a severely battered family member of an alcoholic. An alcoholic who is now recovering and who has had the grace and dignity of setting a beautiful example of what grit and strength is, what forgiveness is all about. He has not only built back his own battered life but has assumed all his worldly responsibilities towards everyone he is related to… and even towards people he is not related to.

....and above all, ironically, this recovering alcoholic gives me the assurance when the going gets tough financially at the journal, that he is there to pick up the bills of Nartanam and actually does so every time I run short of funds.

I have often wondered why I do the work I do, write and publish a serious academic journal on Indian dance.  Having spent my youth juggling with the tough deal of cards that life dealt me; ending up completely wrecked and exhausted; where living every new day was an ordeal and was infested with great uncertainty… Did I get suddenly ambitious of becoming a culture vulture and thus schemed and designed my life to become a writer, teacher and publisher of a dance journal, a career which does not pay in India. No, I did not…. I just went about doing what circumstances had led me to, followed my passion and what I believed in.

Now I come to another part of my friend’s verdict …. Sahaja Yoga, a form of meditation. Practicing it gave me immense peace and serenity during my troubled times. It gave me the grace and dignity to deal with things, gave me the qualities of forgiveness, satisfaction, innocence, true seeking of knowledge, a diplomacy and sweetness of voice and approach and above all a sense of self realization. But yoga was soon forgotten as better times arrived and my  focus shifted from my miseries to the “Moha maya” of life and pursuits of worldly love and goals….

Nartanam is one such goal… what if we bring out a world class journal on classical arts? What if it is in a small way, an effort to preserve and propagate our culture? What if it requires the toil and labor demanding sweat and blood? What if it does not pay the writers and the people running it even for their bread? Generating the finances to run it without compromising on the quality of the content is in itself a huge task…. 

And the irony is that a recovering alcoholic… who was no better than the scum of the earth, not long ago, is its patron… He does not believe in supporting a non self sustaining venture…. but has the compassion and the hope  that the journal ought to be given a decent chance to survive…. especially after being taken over in a financially sick condition from the former publisher….

Many luminaries and successful people who are on the board of advisers of Nartanam are rendering their moral support by lending graciously their eminent and renowned names to the journal… there are writers (though very few) who send in excellent writings with no expectation of financial remuneration….God has been benevolent…. Somehow money comes to pay the printers and the writers. Then what is it that bothers me, troubles me, and leads me to behave in frustration while dealing with personal and professional issues, to warrant the comment…

“You have no sense of decorum. You have been really damaged by your past with many complexes….Therefore all your Yoga has not helped you.”

I do not know! But I want to figure out... as anything worth doing ought to be done with grace and dignity… or else it is better not done…there is no place for frustration and palming off my behavior to some relevant/irrelevant factor…. Sahaja Yoga was not to be used as a  mantra for negotiating problems … it was meant  to be a way of life… Her Holiness Shri Mataji  (Dr. Nirmala Srivastava) left behind a simple form of meditation which  has now been thoroughly subjected to scientific exploration  by eminent institutions for holistic health and it has been researched for its impact on aesthetics of a beautiful life and of arts. 

I have written an elaborate book on the spirituality, divinity, aesthetics and spectatorship of classical performing arts and have discovered a theory from a medieval treatise on dance which expounds a mechanism which has been coincidentally, adequately clarified and researched in Sahaja Yoga and the medical fraternity…. And I wanted to publish this book.  Please believe me, I do not have any religious prejudices and my approach to the above mentioned work was purely academic and scientific…

But after my friend’s judgement…. which, after the initial emotional outburst, I am examining clinically…Maybe,  I am neither a worthy author for expounding such profound beauty of classical arts and its theories; maybe I am not worthy of an exalted form of meditation like Sahaja Yoga, and further, maybe, I am not even a worthy editor of a much worthy journal which deals with divinity… with arts... with dance.

I can pray to the almighty to help me in my efforts to spiritually uplift myself which might reflect in every aspect of my personality in ordinary and extra ordinary circumstances of stress, in times of these worldly affairs and passions… .

If only, every person who values his country/ culture/ arts made an attempt to buy and read Nartanam which costs peanuts… I do not have to run from pillar to post seeking donations, advertisements and patronage and grants from government bodies and corporates alike…. 

Readership is the only patronage which can run Nartanam…. We, the people, shall contribute to keep our culture alive…. And then, any amount of toil, failures and frustrations would be worth it.

Strange is my post today which mixes up my personal passions, failings and a larger interest of a non profit venture. My miserable past, I cannot erase…. and will have to deal with the complexes arising from it... and hopefully somewhere I would attain the decorum to carry on with conviction in my beliefs without succumbing to stress and failures.