Another day with Sufi

What terrible powerful magic do these Sufi masters create with their voices that one is left reeling for hours afterwards?

We had gone to watch a "Sufi-Kathak" performance by Manjari "something" at the Kamani auditorium. The dance was avoidable, but the MUSIC! It just pulls you away into a fourth dimension, your body doesn't remain your own anymore, your inside tears itself out and completely merges with the outer nature - Oh! what power! what beauty! The singers were from Awadh and Rajasthan. And their magic broke through the walls of the proscenium. Tears came rolling to my eyes as my body fought the orgasm! I wondered, were it in Awadh i watched this, beneath a full moon night, with only the sky and the stars above my head and a simple earth lamp ---- what would happen to me? what if I had watched it and listened to it with the desert winds blowing into my face, "duma-dum mast kalandar" going on for hours instead of 10 minutes, oh what would happen to me? I would vanish, disappear, evaporate!

The light designer had completely lost it. Suresh Bhardwaj had called our group "ambitious" in the last class on Light, (and rightly so - we had kind of lost it! ) I wonder what he would call this person. His overdose of Intelligent Light and crass operation was so distracting and painful that my eyes closed by themselves after the first song. And I was kind of disappointed by the dance performance. With the music so powerful and invigorating, the dance rarely broke out and spread its wings into utter emancipation. I wonder why the dancer chose to restrict herself to pretty little stances, when she had the awesome support from the musicians. There was no trance in her steps, no real emotion appeared on her brightly make-upped face. If these are the performers who are taking our wonderfully talented traditional performers out of their native places to abroad and beyond, ( as was said by the narrator, giving a list of all the places the performer has visited), then if I were to travel to Awadh today in search of these Masters, would I ever have the fortune of listening to them and losing myself in their magic amidst mother nature?

Coming to mother nature, had a talk later on after dinner with a pass-out from Bengal, Parimal-da, who is currently working near my hometown Durgapur with local youngsters. His place of work is another centre of another Sufi movement, near the Ajay river, Kenduli, where every year Bauls from all over the state of West Bengal come together for a celebration. He was talking about bringing back nature and the natural into the acting, about trying to find a new method where the Indian actor will not have to borrow from the Western Masters, or completely depend on the norms of the ancient Natyashashtra. Well, it was a long talk, but interesting. But I unfortunately don't remember the details. He is trying to clearly separate out and recognise our wisdom from our imagination, our stage reaction from our real life reaction. I am suddenly reminded of the talk we had on Anatomy during our Orientation. How the body reacts to stimulation from outside, but the Doctor's opinion was so different from that of the actor. Where the Doctor said that an actor can train the brain and the body to emulate the natural reaction to the naturally present stimuli, but never exactly be able to recreate it without the stimuli. And the Actor stood in front of me and said "when do human beings get goose bumps?" I said, when we feel cold, or when we feel fear. "OK, so what am I doing now?" and I saw his hair stand up even as he looked at me, and then stand down.

Which is the magic? which is real? I do not know. But there is always a lot to know. A first to everything.

I finally got up on the rooftop of Abhimanch today. We sang songs. We came down and walked back to our respective places.

PS : the trip to Agra and Fatehpur Sikri was good, but I missed Sonmani, who was down with dengue, too much to actually enjoy. But even then, Jagdish (the sculptor from Karnataka) and Kannannuni (the guy with the Bass voice from Kerala) managed to buy food (chowmein and tandoori chicken) for three at 95 when the others ate a vegetarian thali for 100 rs. each. It rained in Fatehpur Sikri, and the red sandstone was redder than ever. The marble was as clean as it could be. The geometry was, as usual, mind-boggling. The Intricacy, awe inspiring. Ratna Pannicker and Jagdish gave us live concerts inside the Sikri, sitting on the same pedestal where a few hundred years ago, Tansen used to create magic on. The foreign tourists asked for a repeat. The Agra fort was intriguing as usual. more later. I gotta run.