Dakshina Vaidyanathan Baghel and Mayukh Bhattacharya present motherhood and fatherhood in ‘Expecting: Pratyasha’

Suranya Aiyar’s Delhi-based Bhagyam Arts and Ideas presented a programme called ‘Expecting: Pratyasha’ at the Triveni Auditorium on 3 May. A black screen placed on the stage to provide a background for the dancers featured geometric golden motifs in folk art styles.  

Dakshina Vaidyanathan Baghel – Bharatanatyam 

Bharatanatyam dancer Dakshina Vaidyanathan Baghel presented ‘Ayoga Vatsalya’, a piece which explores the anticipation and excitement of a pregnant woman eagerly waiting to see the child growing in her womb. If I remember correctly, this piece was conceptualized and first performed online during the COVID lockdowns when Dakshina was pregnant with her first child – read my report on it here. At the time, she had danced this at around seven months pregnant. This time too, Dakshina was at about the same stage in her second pregnancy (she has since had a baby girl!).  

When I watched it online in 2021, I could feel the delicate state that she was in and how brave it was for her to do this. But maybe the viewing on the screen did not have that impact. I later saw her performing the piece on stage, but at that time, she was not an expectant mother. Meanwhile, in the years since, we as a family have experienced the anxiety and anticipation of a pregnancy when my daughter-in-law got pregnant and had a baby. So when I saw a seven-months-pregnant Dakshina performing on stage, my overwhelming response was, oh you don’t have to do this. Don’t do the whole of it – standing, sitting, squatting. Please be careful, bachcha.  

Dakshina says it was not a performance but a real-life journey for her as she was actually going through it. The accompanists were Amir Khan on sarangi, Zakir Hussain Warsi on tabla, G. Raghuraman on flute and Sudha Raghuraman on vocals. As the compere said, dance has taken a leap – it has progressed from a sensuous devadasi dancing about meeting the hero to a blooming pregnant mother. The text was a Sanskrit translation by Dr. Divyanand Jha of an English poem written by Dakshina herself, and the music was by Sudha Raghuraman, in raag Mishrajog and taal mishrachapu. 

Dakshina elaborated on the composition by explaining that shringara rasa in philosophy is about the passionate love between the nayak and the nayika. One such shringara is ayoga shringara. The nayika has not seen the nayak, just read about him, heard about him, seen his pictures, and yet she is smitten with love of him. She adapted that rasa to her sentiments for her baby. Ayoga vatsalya is the love she feels for a child whom she has never seen, knows nothing about – doesn’t know whether it is a boy or a girl. The mother has to wait a whole nine months to set eyes on the baby whom she already loves with her whole heart. She had created this piece as a staged performance of her anticipation for her child. Who are you, what are you like, your gender… She just wants a beautiful baby with a beautiful heart and mind. What name will she give it?  

In the entire universe, as a rule, one asks for union with one’s loved one, and here she is, asking for separation from her baby so that she can see him or her. Without separating her baby from herself, she will not be able to see it. The uniting umbilical cord will be cut. Every being, every force in nature is asking for union – the river with the sea, the peacock with the rain, the lotus with the sun, jivatma with parmatma, a lover with their beloved, all ask for a permanent union, but a mother has to ask for separation. It was a personal experience for her.  

Sudha started the piece with a sonorous aalap. Dakshina wore a black and golden saree for her aharyam. She started by standing with her feet crossed, looking in the mirror at her growing abdomen. She feels the head of the baby and gives it a kiss. Dakshina depicted the expressions of feeling the baby kick. As she feels the coiled baby inside her, she embraces it. She sits down and prays to the sun god. She has gone through seven months and with only two more to go, she asks for protection. She tries to draw a face from her imagination – eyes, nose, lips, a face she wants to see. ‘Na milita twaam kadapi’ were the vocals. Sitting in a squat, Dakshina tries to imagine what will her child will like – animals like elephant, lion or snake? What would she or he like to play – ball games or hide and seek? It is as if she beckoned to her child but it is standing behind her and covering her eyes. She picks a flower and plucks petals to guess if it will be a girl or a boy. If it is a girl, she would apply kajal, bindi and chunri. If a boy, she would tie a dhoti. Whatever it is, she would love it all the same.  

As the mother falls asleep, she dreams that her abdomen is growing bigger and her back hurts, she is sitting in a position to deliver and finally holds the baby in her hands. The scissors cut the cord. She compares the baby to her drawings and finds it even better. She feeds the baby and thinks that so far, it was a part of my body, within me, and now it is separate. The entire universe wants a union with the beloved – lotus and sun, river sea, peacock and clouds, atma and parmatama… Standing, Dakshina depicted the unity. And here she is now, asking for a separation.  

As she sits down and reclines, patting the baby inside gently, she realizes that the dialogue was between herself and her baby. Dakshina, as ever, delivered a complete performance. Her abhinaya was very real since her experience was real. It also goes to show that dance can lend itself to all situations in life and that a dancer can portray any situation through dance. Sudha’s vocals touched the heart and animated the theme. On the higher notes, it was resounding. It was a celebration of motherhood. 

Mayukh Bhattacharya – Kathak 

The next performer for the evening was Kathak dancer Mayukh Bhattacharya. Mayukh began his training under his father Malay Bhattacharya and is a disciple of Pt. Birju Maharaj and Saswati Sen. His piece was titled ‘Is Paar, Us Paar’ and explored the relationship between a father and his child. A woman goes through a lot of changes in her life. She has to go through puberty, periods, pregnancy, motherhood and then menopause. These are all turbulent times with a lot of emotional stress. And somewhere along the way, we forget to acknowledge the emotional, physical and mental changes in men. But today, fathers are equally involved in the birth and upbringing of their children and that is the aspect that he wanted to highlight.  

To present the male perspective, they chose Kathak, a contrast to the first performance, which depicted the mother’s perspective in Bharatanatyam. Suranya said that since Mayukh is a bachelor, when they were discussing the piece and needed context, she referred to the experience of her husband when their first child was born. 

 

The expecting father also has the excitement of having a baby, but it clashes with the bond between the mother and the child. The music for the two pieces had been curated by Suranya and arranged by Sudha. The composition was ‘E ri ali piya bin’ in raag Yaman, followed by a tarana of Pt. Birju Maharaj in the same raag. Suranya said that she chose the bandish to underline the journey from distance to belonging that Mayukh was presenting. 

In a note written by Mayukh that Suranya read out, he said that besides the sacred bond between a mother and her child, the piece explored the grounded and intimate bonding between a father and his child, ‘his waiting, his longing and his belonging’. ‘The patience becomes the rhythm, his isolation becomes the connection and the legacy begins.’ 

Mayukh was dressed in black and red. The depiction shows a man seeing his wife growing as she becomes pregnant. He is happy to think of the union with his child. After the infant is born, he goes into their room and picks up the baby. He is frustrated at his wife not loving him and not being able to give him time. The door is shut when he feels like picking up his child; he feels lonely ever since she became pregnant. He gets a flower to put in her hair and win her attention, and wins an embrace. He tries to feed the baby. ‘Tare gin gin’: he has been very lonely. But as the child grows, he runs behind his baby, plays ball, holds the child up. There are no bounds to his joy as the child grows. 

His nritta had footwork, leaps and chakkars. The tarana was neatly rendered. And kudos to Sudha for rendering a Hindustani composition and tarana so well, bringing out the emotion in the song with all its nuances.  

There was a costume change to white. The piece began with the notes of the flute sweetening the air and Sudha’s aalap stirring emotions within you. Her rendition of ‘Thumak chalat’, Tulsidas’ Ram bhajan, was remarkable. The success of making it an interesting evening was as much hers as the dancers’. The father looks at the baby’s anklets as he learns to walk. They are like lightning. The waist ornament hangs on his waist. 

 

The father holds the baby’s hand and teaches it to walk, then plants a kiss, ‘vidrum se arun adhar’. He proudly looks at the face, finding it beautiful. As the child grows, that pride and affection never leaves the father. Mayukh ended the piece with nritta, footwork and chakkars. It was a well conceptualized performance, neatly presented.  

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Later, Suranya spoke to Dakshina, Mayukh, Sudha and Rama Vaidyanathan. Excerpts from the conversation: 

Dakshina Vaidyanathan Baghel 

Suranya: Dance is a visual form. How did you manage to look so gorgeous? And how did you think of your costume? 

Dakshina: The main thing is that none of my usual costumes fit now. So I took a regular sari and draped it like the dhoti-style costume that we wear. I found that to be the most comfortable because I could wrap it in any way I needed – basically something comfortable to dance in because I don’t have the ability to do too much on stage – just enough for me to sit and stand. 

Suranya: Where do you think we can take this idea from here? After all, a dancer of any age can represent a young girl yearning for her lover or a very young dancer can represent an old rakshasi. Do you think an expectant dancer could present something that doesn’t refer to her pregnancy? 

Dakshina: Yes, absolutely. Dance is such a universal language that it goes beyond the physical. There are certain abilities or inabilities at different stages of life caused by pregnancy, for instance, or age etc., but that doesn’t change anything. Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra ji, the great Odissi maestro, a man, playing Radha for an ashtapadi – it is on YouTube, actually, and it is a very old recording – but it is regal. One forgets that it is a man. One sees only Radha. It is more about the artistry of the artist rather than the physical form. Definitely, we could have a dancer present something that does not reference her pregnancy, even while she is expecting.  

Rama Vaidyanathan 

Suranya: Rama ma’am, you have also been doing creative work, pushing boundaries. In some of your productions, the placement of the musicians has also been different from what it usually is. What has been the motivation for this innovation? 

Rama: Congratulations to Suranya and Bhagyam Arts and Ideas for curating an evening of such nuanced and layered abhinaya, because this is something you will not see on social media. To see an hour of in-depth abhinaya with such unusual concepts, and solo dance with live orchestra at that – it is important for organizations and art connoisseurs like you to present curated solo dance evenings with live musicians like this because this is becoming a rarity. Everyone is wanting to watch spectacles and large groups; it is everywhere on social media. To have the patience to sit and – this theatre was conducive to that – to sit and watch this nuanced in-depth evening filled with abhinaya was very special. 

It is as Leela ji titled her book ‘Indian Classical Dance: Tradition and Transition’ – there has to be transition in tradition. It is important to push boundaries, broaden the canvas, broaden the spectrum, because that is the only way dance will evolve. And if we think we are the only ones in this generation doing it, that’s not true. Even when dance started, hundreds of years ago, at every stage, people have been evolving, adapting, pushing boundaries. That is how dance evolves, like a fluid river. I think that comes naturally for dancers who want to go beyond the language of dance and look at the form as much broader than just the movement vocabulary, to look at it instead as a tool to communicate, as a lived experience. Art reflects life. It is especially important in classical dance to be sensitive to the world around you, to be conscious of what is happening around you, and then to be able to dance with that consciousness in your mind. 

And it has been wonderful working with Sudha, who is my long-time partner in crime. She has done such a wonderful job making the music for Ayoga Vatsalya; Dakshina conceptualized it and went to Sudha with it, and Sudha can tell you more on that. 

Sudha Raghuraman 

Suranya: The entire composition had a lot of movement in it. Can you tell us how you were able to bring that in? 

Sudha: I am a mother and I have gone through the same experiences and had the same questions. The only thing is that I was asking these questions (when I was a new mother) and bombarding my husband with them, and he had no answers, obviously. So when Dakshina came to me, each line that she narrated, I was able to relate to. When you understand not just the meaning, but are also able to reminisce about those experiences, it is far easier to create a piece. And as you sing, you also start to internalize a piece. It is not just technique; there’s so much more to a piece. I read a script seven to eight times before I make the music. Life experiences and your own vatsalya bhava comes to the fore while creating a piece and also singing it with great love. One has to be passionate to both create and sing on stage. It is about the rasa that is to be created. 

Mayukh Bhattacharya 

Suranya: Mayukh is still a bachelor. But I want to congratulate him on the sensitivity and emotional depth that he brought to the portrayal. I chose the bandish ‘E Ri Aali’ in Yaman for this, in which the nayika is in viraha. And you were telling me and Sudha how hard it was to switch this to the nayak and perform this as a man. Tell us about that. 

Mayukh: In the bandish, the nayika is telling the sakhi main piya ke bina raat guzaar rahi hoon. Call it writer’s block or whatever, but I couldn’t think of anything for this, so I went to Saswati pishi, and I said you tell me what to do. Everyone has seen Maharaj ji portraying a young girl, bali umar lad gayiyan – that is a character. But I am showing a man who is missing the wife, who is pregnant, and then being stopped by my wife so that I don’t disturb the newborn child and her. I felt they (the bandish and the portrayal) did not match, and Saswati pishi said so too, mel nahin jaa raha. But full credit to her guidance, she told me you show that when he is putting up flowers, he disturbs the child and it cries. So that is how I have carved it, and the depth with which Sudha has sung it led me to find the intensity of that bandish. Tarana to hai, usmein hamari cheezein hain – gend ki bihari, usmein bachche ke saath khel rahe hain, ‘Thumak chalat Ram Chandra’ I am showing. But the main part was ‘E Ri Aali’, and thank you Saswati pishi and Sudha akka, who sang it with such intensity that I was able to use that in my portrayal.