Woman: A Search

A woman’s status in the Indian society is changing rapidly, and by some accounts is getting better in some parts of the country. A perceptible change is that at least there is consistent articulation of the need for things to change. 

But Indian society is multilayered and several centuries coexist simultaneously in the present, so while we may be witnessing a mild transformation in the status of women in some urban centres, their situation remains unchanged across large parts of India.

An indication of the utter disdain with which a majority of men in India view the position of women was on display recently when a senior political leader (and a former government minister), Sharad Yadav, shamelessly shouted at a woman government minister (Smriti Irani), telling her suggestively, “I know who you are.”

One doesn’t have to agree with Smriti Irani on anything whatsoever (and any sane person would, in fact, find it impossible to agree with her on anything) to respect her as a woman and as a minister. Pertinently, the exchange occurred in the Indian parliament.

(If you wish to read more about Sharad Yadav’s deep-rooted misogyny, click here: Thank you Sharad Yadav…)

The situation is not all that different for women of Indian origin in Canada, especially in places such as Brampton, where the Indian origin population is in greater numbers. Such places are hotbeds of misogyny and gender-based discrimination. Importantly, the plight of these women generally remains hidden and doesn’t find any mention in the mainstream media, except for an occasional report when something really drastic occurs.

Many who watched the exquisite two-part dance ballet Woman:A Search by Mrudanga Dance Academy at the Fleck Theatre of the Harbourfront Centre on March 21 may have justifiably marvelled at the mastery of the performers and the dazzling production, and gone home deeply satisfied at having seen an avant-garde performance.

They would have (again, justifiably) congratulated the Harbourfront Centre for including an Indian classical dance ballet in its repertoire of the Next Steps series festival.

However, underlying the artistic excellence of the ballet was (is) the unrelenting reality that needs to be shouted out loudly and repeatedly: that women in India (and women of Indian origin in the diaspora) continue to get the wet end of the stick, and that their amelioration remains sketchy and incomplete.

Mrudanga Dance Academy depicted not just the plight, but also the indomitable spirit of Indian woman, and it did so with finesse, subtlety and breathtaking artistry.

And it wasn’t just the classical Odissi dance by the academy’s troupe in Janma (birth), or the fusion of dance forms in Trishna (thirst); it was Rishabha Dhar’s enthralling music, where he suddenly introduced a saxophone interlude to accentuate Ananda’s longing for Prakriti during their momentary separation, electrifying the auditorium; it was the dazzling display of lights and minimalist stage décor; it was Ananya Mukherjee’s emotionally charged voiceover that made Prakriti’s pain at being perennially ostracized palpably real; it was the legendary Lata Pada’s sombre yet evocative monologue; and it was the scripts by Amit Dasgupta (Janma) and Ananya and Bandana  Mukherjee (Trishna) that gave a contemporary slant to modernist tales.

Of course, all these aspects went into making the show splendid, but what took it to another level, what made it memorable and unforgettable was Enakshi Sinha’s riveting Odissi recital.

Janma is a straightforward story about gender discrimination, where a woman is born in a family that has been praying for a son. She grows ups aware that she is unwanted, and learns to survive by resisting her marginalization. The recital concludes on a positive note when the woman herself gives birth to a girl child, and she vows to treat her fairly and not shun her.

Trishna is based on Rabindranath Tagore’s classic Chandalika, the play and the opera-style dance drama that for the first time ever brought the angst of a young Dalit woman Prakriti, who falls in love with Ananda, a Bhikshu primarily because he treats her as a woman. 

Trishna is based on a more woman-centric interpretation of Chandalika by physicist turned philosopher and Tagore scholar Abu Sayeed Ayyub. This interpretation portrays the epic mainly as a love story, where love has the power to conquer all – in Prakriti’s case the social isolation, and in Ananda’s case the vow of worldly renunciation. In this interpretation of Chandalika, the two lovers boldly embark upon a journey to shatter stereotypes, break norms and attempt to create a new, better world that would have no place for prejudice and hatred.

The performance was in support of the UN Women’s campaign Empowering Women, Empowering Humanity: Picture It. 

Charulata

I’ve been fortunate to see more Satyajit Ray films in Toronto in the last six years than I could in more than a decade when I was in India. In India I saw most of Ray’s oeuvre on TV. Here in Toronto I’ve seen all the films on the big screen – either at Ray or Tagore festivals. It makes a world of difference to see these films on the big screen.

This summer TIFF Bell Lightbox has organized a comprehensive festival of Ray’s films from July 3 to August 17. The Sun and the Moon – The Films of Satyajit Ray will screen all of Ray’s important classics.

Surprisingly, the screenings have been well-attended. In fact, had it not been for the generosity of my friend Mariellen Ward, a friend of India and an intrepid travel blogger, who gave me a free ticket, I wouldn’t have been able to attend Kathleen O’Donnell’s lecture on and the subsequent screening of Charulata (The Lonely Wife – 1964).  

Kathleen O’Donnell is a professor at the University of Toronto teaching Rabindranath Tagore and Satyajit Ray. Ray turned Tagore’s Nastanirh – the broken nest – into Charulata.

Kathleen O’Donnell’s introduction to Ray delineated all the important facets of the filmmaker, including Tagore’s influence, the basic grounding in the ideas of the Bengali renaissance, the confluence of western and oriental thought as exemplified by the Brahmo Samaj,  his career as a commercial artist, his interest in calligraphy and the creation of the Ray Roman font, Ray’s abiding debt to the French filmmaker Jean Renoir, and his almost-maniacal attention to details to all aspects of film making – from directing to script, music, set-design, costumes, cinematography and editing. Unfortunately, as she was warming up to the subject, it was time for the screening.

Charulata is one of Ray’s best.  It is a period film (1879) – depicting the height of the Bengali renaissance, when the issues that had been raised nearly a century ago in public fora were now being hotly debated in homes. Of special significance was the role of women in the family and the society. The film depicts the cloistered lives of women in feudal households, with nothing much to do except knit, make paan, play cards, and supervise the household help; the few who could read and occasionally wrote.

Charu (Madhabi Mukherjee) is one such housewife, and falls in love with her husband’s cousin Amal (Soumitra Chatterjee).  The woolly-headed husband Bhupati (Sailen Mukherjee) runs his own newspaper, and is forever obsessed with British political happenings and English thought, and how these would affect Indians.  He doesn’t have time for Charu, or for the books she reads. Amal, on the other hand, is young and has all the time to feed Charu’s fantasies. She falls in love with him, but he is not willing to betray his brother and beats a hasty retreat. When Bhupati discovers Charu’s love for Amal, he is shattered and attempts to leave, but returns to what is now a broken nest.

In The Cinema of Satyajit Ray, film critic and Ray’s contemporary Chidananda Das Gupta (1921-2011) says, “The secret of their identification with an otherwise uncomfortable theme lay in the state of innocence of the characters caught in the web of forces greater than themselves. Their lack of conscious knowledge of what is happening inside them gives them a certain nobility; it is in their awakening that their tragedy lies. Amal, the younger man, is the first to realize the truth; for Charu it is an imperceptible movement from the unconscious to the conscious; for the husband, it is a sudden, stark, unbelievable revelation of truth. All three wake up, as it were, into the twentieth century, the age of self-consciousness. The rhythm of the unfolding is so gentle, impeccable and true that there is no sense of shock even for the conservative Indian, although Ray’s film was as daring for the wider audience as Tagore’s story had been in its day.”

Incidentally, it is believed that Tagore’s story may have been based on the relationship between Rabindranath and Kadambaridevi, the wife of Rabindranath’s elder brother Jyotirindranath. Kadambaridevi committed suicide soon after Rabindranath’s marriage. Rabindranath and Kadambaridevi wrote and read poetry together.

I also saw Mahanagar the next day. But I’ll write about that some other time. The post has become too long. 

Celebrating a 100 years of Tagore's Nobel Prize

Tagore aficionados couldn’t have imagined a better evening than the one last Sunday (9 November 2013) at Toronto’s George Weston recital hall organized by Inspirations 2013 to celebrate the centenary of Rabindranath Tagore’s Nobel Prize for Literature.

Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) was the first Asian and non-European Nobel Laureate (Literature, 1913).

The creative team for the evening comprised Manasi Adhikari of the Gitanjali, Ananya Mukherjee-Reed of York University and Enakshi Sinha of Mrudanga.

In a message explaining the raison d’etre of Inspirations 2013, the creative team said, “With Inspirations, we celebrate those aspects of Tagore’s vision that are universal and utterly contemporary. The fundamental equality between all human beings, the need to resist all forms of injustice, and the infinite possibility of deepening our understanding of each other – these are some of his values. Tagore saw the arts as a powerful medium of social change. It enables us to reach new heights of creative self-expression where everyone can come together – irrespective of language, identity, race, nationality or religion.”

The Tagore Anniversary Celebrations Committee of Toronto (TACCT) pivoted the organizing of the program with many organizations collaborating. The TACCT had organized many programs during Tagore’s 150th birth anniversary in 2011.

Grace Hong

Debshankar Roy

The evening began with musical renditions of Tagore’s compositions performed by a unique combination of choir and orchestra music. Debshankar Roy of Violin Brothers was the conductor and Grace Hong was the concert master. Mansi Adhikari was the music director.

The highlight of this musical prelude was the English rendition of Tagore’s most famous Ekla Chalo Re written when Bengal was Partitioned in 1905. It was Mahatma Gandhi’s favourite poem. Listen to Amitabh Bachchan's rendition of the classic here (from the film Kahani; dir: Sujoy Ghosh; music Vishal Shekhar): Ekla Chalo Re

The second part of the program was the presentation of Inspirations Spirit Awards in honour of Rabindranath Tagore to some of Toronto’s leading citizens who have contributed to improving our world by making it more inclusive. 

John Van Burek, the artistic director and founder of Pleiades Theatre, and director of Tagore’s Dak Ghar, and Ananya-Mukherjee-Reed, Professor, York University hosted this segment of the program.

The Inspirations Spirit Award were given to:

Dionne Brand, Canada’s leading poet of social justice, for Poetry and Social Justice

Matt Galloway, host, Metro Morning, CBC, for Diversity and Social Inclusion

Inner City Angles & its Executive Director Jane Howard Baker, for Empowerment through the Arts

Ontario Co-operative Association and its Executive Director Mark Ventry  for Building Inclusive Economies

Chandalika, Tagore’s timeless saga of a young Dalit girl’s love and sacrifice, was the grand finale to the evening. “The production brought together several forms of Indian classical dance accompanied by live music, drama and narration.” 

Manasi Adhikari directed the dance drama, and Ananya Mukherjee-Reed translated the epic into English. For other credits see here: Inspirations 2013

The audio-visual slides that translated Tagore’s poems from Bengali to English helped the non-Bengali knowing audience understand and appreciate the magic of Tagore’s poetry. Also, it was heartening to note the support the event received from Tagore lovers. The large hall in North York was nearly full.

Images: https://www.facebook.com/Inspirations2013toronto?fref=ts 

Inspirations 2013

Inspirations 2013 - a celebration of diversity, creativity and justice

Inspired by Asia's first Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore (Literature, 1913)

November 9, 2013 6:30pm

George Weston Hall, Toronto Centre for the Arts

5040 Yonge Street North York Toronto

Buy tickets here: Inspirations 2013 tickets

INSPIRATIONS brings rare treats from South Asia to Toronto’s multicultural, English-speaking audiences. Hear music and poetry that fuses the East and West; meet distinguished recipients of the Inspirations Spirit Awards; and watch ‘A Woman’s Quest’ - a timeless play about love and justice written in colonial India. Live music, narration, and classical Indian choreography come together in this stunning event. Presented in English and with translations.

Inspirations 2013 is inspired by Rabindranath Tagore who became the first Asian and non-European Nobel Laureate in 1913. The fundamental equality between all human beings, the need to resist all forms of injustice, and the infinite possibility of deepening our understanding of each other within and beyond borders – these are some of Tagore's values. He saw the arts as a powerful medium of social change which enables us to come together – irrespective of language, identity, race, nationality or religion.

Read about the people behind Inspirations 2013 here: Inspiration 2013 team

The Tagore Anniversary Celebrations Committee of Toronto (TACCT) will also present awards on November 9. Read about the award categories and recipients here:
Inspiration 2013 Awards

Click here to find out about the evening's program: Evening's program

More about Tagore: Meet Gurudev 

Full details at www.Inspirations2013.ca

Of Tagore, Tolstoy & translations - I

A week ago, I attended a play reading organised by Sally Jones (Rasik Arts) of Rabindranath Tagore’s The Post Office. 

We read from the translation published by St. Martin's Press, New York in 1996. The play is translated by Krishna Dutta and Andrew Robinson with woodcut illustrations by Michael McCurdy).

In her introduction of the play in this edition, Anita Desai, says, “In appearance the play is as modest as a dewdrop, in effect it is as profound as the ocean.”

Tagore’s Nobel laureate status notwithstanding (or perhaps because of the intimidating effect that status has on most lovers of literature), his work remains largely unknown to non-Bengali audiences.

Lyricist Gulzar explained the reason for this succinctly in an interview recently to Calcutta’s The Telegraph, “Tagore was and is still looked upon as a Bengali poet. He is our national poet but is identified as a regional poet. There should be a feeling in every Indian, whether he is Marathi or Punjabi or Tamilian, that Tagore is our poet. But what happened was... yeh Bangalion ka jo Tagore hai, woh bahut bada shayyar hai. We as a nation have always had a bad habit of living in fragments...It’s true. Bengalis have been very, very proud of Tagore but also very possessive about him. That’s because he is part of the culture of every home. Every child starts with Tagore and then moves on to other Bengali poets. The possessiveness about him in Bengalis, I mean in a positive way. But it’s also true that there were too many restrictions on translating Tagore. You had to get permission from Visva-Bharati and then you had to get the translation approved. Not just translation, even film adaptations.”

On the other hand, The Post Office has a universal and enduring appeal, having been translated in several languages. 

In the Translators’ Preface to The Post Office Krishna Dutta and Andrew Robinson observe, “Each artist coming to it has made it speak afresh to his own place and time in his own idiom. Its Spanish translator, the celebrated poet Juan Ramon Jimenez wrote of ‘my hand that helped to give our Spanish form to the rhythm of Tagore’s immense heart.’ In 1940, the evening before Paris fell to the Nazis, Andre Gide’s French translation was read over the radio. 

"And in 1942, in Warsaw ghetto, a Polish version was the last play performed in the orphanage of Janusz Korczak. When, after the performance, Korczak was asked why he chose the play, he answered that ‘eventually one had to learn to accept serenely the angel of death. Within a month, he and his children were taken away and gassed.”

Perhaps one of the reasons why Tagore’s creative genius remains largely unexplored even as the world celebrates his sesquicentennial is the indifferent quality of translations of his work, especially his poetry.

continued in the entry below...

Rabindranath Tagore: 150 years celebrations begin

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Tea with Tagore

Tea with Tagore in Toronto. 

I’m happy to report that there were more people interested in the presentation than there were seats at Harbourfront’s Studio Theater.

Ishwar Mooljee played Tagore. His resemblance to the  master of letters is uncanny. He effortlessly engaged the audience with his conversational approach to the subject. Sally Jones’ research on Rabindranath Tagore as a painter was unobtrusive.

The wonderful world of Tagore as an artiste remains incidental in relation to his enormous reputation as a writer and justifiably so. Many outside the subcontinent may not know this, but Tagore is the only poet who has written the national anthems of two nations – India and Bangladesh.

I would liked to know whether Tagore’s nephew Abanindranath Tagore had any influence on him as a painter because Abanindranath’s is credited with the formation of the first truly Indian - Swadeshi - style in painting and his students included stalwarts such as Nandalal Bose and Jamini Roy. While this could have provided an added dimension to the program, on its own Tea with Tagore was riveting, although just half-an-hour was rather too short.

Prior to the event, I had written to Jones and send her the link of my blog on Tagore’s journalism that I wrote last year. Jones responded explaining, “I have been looking at his essays, addresses, letters, etc., during the last ten years of his life...and painting rather than on his fiction. I hadn't thought much about his journalistic writing - have been looking more at speeches he made in different countries... Hope you can get to Harbourfront on the 20th and perhaps we can exchange ideas then.”

I waited to meet her after the show, but couldn’t. She was probably backstage busy wrapping up. 

Image: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=288730399182&ref=mf

Rabindranath Tagore

May 7 is Rabindranath Tagore's birth anniversary. Tagore's literature got him the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913. However, his journalistic pieces don't often get the attention they deserve. This piece looks at Tagore the journalist

N. C. Chatterjee (father of former Lok Sabha speaker Somnath Chatterjee), in a tribute to Tagore has said, "What Goethe was to Germany, what Wordsworth was to England, what Walt Whitman was to America, that Tagore is to India."

However, it is often the case that the world, while assessing Rabindranth Tagore, appreciates his greatness as a poet-philosopher, but generally neglects the other, equally important, facets of Tagore's colourful personality. Nirad Chaudhuri's comment is rather apt in this context: "It is the easiest thing to become engrossed in the poet at the expense of the man. That would be a grievous error because - to put the most obvious objection first - Tagore is many things as good or nearly as good as a great poet."

While the creative writing of Tagore has moulded the cultural sensibilities of post-independence India, his journalistic writings, dealing with the burning issues of the day, helped mobilize public opinion and formulated the social concerns of the masses subjugated under the colonial rule.

These writings bring out the various facets of Tagore's personality. Tagore as a journalist was equally, if not more, effective as was Tagore the poet, novelist or essayist.

Since the time his first poem appeared in 1875 (when he was just 13), Tagore continued to contribute to various newspapers and journals. And during his 80-year life span, he was actively associated with seven journals which he edited at different times.

Before he reached his twenties, he was already a major contributor to Bharati (edited by his brother Dwijendranath Tagore). These contributions included not only poems, essays and literary criticisms, notably one on Michael Madhusudan Dutt's Meghnadbadha Kabya, but also articles on such exotic topics as 'English manners', 'The Anglo-Saxons and Anglo-Saxon literature'.

After his first visit to London (in 1878), he wrote a series of letters recording his impressions of England and the English people. These were serialized in Bharati, with an editor's footnote. Evidently, the sensitive mind of young Tagore could not tolerate the racial bigotry of the English and this found clear expression in his writings. Ten years later, these letters were published in the book Diary of a Traveller.

Tagore's anger at his experiences in in Britian couldn't be hidden. He wrote, "The pride of unrestrained power affects the very foundation of the national character. It sullies the purity of that love of freedom on which alone can national glory be found. That is why one hears the Englishman at home saying that the Englishman in India is a race apart; the reason for it is not damaged liver but also to certain other more elevated human organs."

Tagore's acerbic pen ruffled many feathers. Of these, the most famous involved Bankim Chandra. He entered into a protracted debate on Hinduism with Bankim Chandra. The protracted debate ended in the great novelist writing a most generous letter of appreciation to Tagore for his polemical abilities.

In 1890, along with his cousin Sudhindranath, Tagore brought out a new Bengali monthly magazine - Sadhana. The magazine lasted for five years and folded up in 1895, after the birth of Tagore's last son, which made it impossible for him to devote enough time for editorial responsibilities. 

Image from http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1913/tagore-bio.html
Self-portrait: http://www.tagorecentre.org.uk/graphics/articles_ranaldnewson2.jpg

If you are interested in reading the complete article click here