Odissi: Rasa and bhava in the ordinary everyday depicted in Sharmila Biswas’ extraordinary Manodarpan

Guru Sharmila Biswas

 

Guru Sharmila Biswas, with her body of work, is not only an Odissi practitioner any more. She now embodies the spirit of contemporary conceptualization and innovative choreography. Her use of props and cloth to give a new dimension to stagecraft, her imaginative use of music and lights, have redefined Odissi presentation. The words associated with her work are out the box and hatke. The venue for her ‘Manodarpan: Reflections of Life’, presented by the Natya Ballet Centre, was Kamani Auditorium and the who’s who of Delhi classical music and dance circles was there.  

‘Manodarpan: Reflections of Life’ was performed by Sharmila ji herself, along with her disciples Krishnendu Saha, Koushik Das, Dipjoy Sarkar, Biswajit Mondal, Raaginni Hindocha and Saity Dey. The music direction was by Rajeswari Ganguly. The production was based on eight rasas as defined by the Natya Shastra. It delves into the rich tapestry of human emotion called bhava. Manodarpan depicts rasa and bhava in the everyday stories and emotions of humans. Usually, mythological stories involving the gods and goddesses are associated with the rasas. Each rasa has an associated colour and emotion as well. But in this case, everyday human stories were chosen to depict the rasas.  

 

 

There are four Vedas in the universe and the fifth is the Natya Veda. This gives pleasure and happiness to mankind, besides the upliftment of the soul. To the chants of shlokas from the Natya Shastra, the dancers floated by. The stage was set with long white and off-white drapes hanging from the ceiling, with two of the panels going down diagonally. The back of the stage was slightly elevated on one side, with ropes hanging to suggest a window. The other side suggested a door, indicating the setting of a house. The dancers were also dressed in black saris with coloured borders. Sharmila ji chose to wear a white sari. 

 

The performance commentary said that natya is the essence of life. It gives pleasure and happiness in life, it reflects life, and finally, it creates a world larger than life. The constant human emotions have been studied in Natya Shastra as the bhavas. The spectator and the dancer are both on the same plane and so know each other to be floating in the same rasa.  

 

The dancers moved very gently across the stage, in and out of the wings in groups. They carried coloured masks in their  hands, which they threw in front of the stage. These probably represented the various bhavas in their various hues that humans experience. As the different hues were shown, the masks were flung off stage.  

 

Rasa is produced as a result of various stages in life. Sarvangrasarangjaya – the various rasas are manifest in the body. The shreshtha shringara rasa is produced as a result of love between man and woman. The rati bhava between the two is the beginning of the love between atma and parmatma. That love is elevated to reach the stage of pure joy or bliss. Shantarati is when the calm required to give and take love is reached. Dasyarati is when the lover chooses to serve the loved one and gets satisfaction out of it. In sakhyarati, the two individuals are equal in their relationship and the give and take is the same. In vatsalyarati, one is protective and nurturing and the other is at the receiving end. Madhurarati is the state of ultimate bliss in a relationship where give and take is selfless and at par. These were the five types of rati in shringara. 

 

The group of dancers depicted and recited the shlokas, with Krishnendu at the helm moving up and down the front of the stage. Sharmila ji, in a white sari, did a short solo presenting the five ratis accompanied by some remarkable music and recitation of bols. She used a stool draped in black as a prop. She makes the lover sit on it, wipes his sweat in shantarati. She fans her lover, gets flowers for them. Everything is provided for the lover. She sits down to press his feet. This is dasyarati, when you serve your beloved to comfort him. 

 

 But at times, she gets tired of washing, cleaning and grinding the grains in the chakki. She then dreams of following her own dreams and taking off after them. And when she gets that equal status and flies off, it becomes love between equals, giving rise to sakhyarati. When she nurtures him like a child, feeds him and plays games like hide and seek, it is the vatsalyarati at play.  

 

The lyrics and bols sung at lower notes heightened the impact. The next rati was the madhurarati. Sharmila ji’s depiction was very sensuous and seductive – how the lovers grope and then embrace and love and kiss each other. It is pleasure for both as they move up and down.  

 

The next rasa depicted was hasya rasa. Laughter is produced by vikriti, when a dancer jumped like a toad to the bantering of another dancer. Next was karuna. Sorrow engulfs life during tragic situations and dark times, and when you share that sorrow, it invokes karuna in the other. A dancer sat inside a large black wooden cube. Then she stepped out of it and rolled it so it fell off the stage, becoming a sort of step for the dancers to climb down and up the stage or rest their feet on, as on a stool. She cries inconsolably and is beyond pacifying with words. She does not want to part from her lover, nor does she want to listen to anyone trying to console her.  

 

The raudra rasa is like a storm that disturbs everything. Rage is uncontrolled fury and evokes violence. The dancers held the long drapes  and moved across with them, entangling them. The straight lines were all disturbed. They depicted violence and attacks. A few dancers, standing off stage in front of the stage, stood as spectators to the violence.  

 

The veer rasa followed, with a dancer standing on a raised pedestal, flexing his muscles. With foot movements, leaps and circular moves, he depicted the warrior who fights without malice. He carries a bow and arrows. The veer fights without malice or aggression. The dancers pulled and disturbed the ropes that ‘depicted’ the doors and windows from behind which they had been peeping and watching.  

 

Vibhatsa rasa was shown by a dancer walking past a carcass, who cannot bear the smell and throws up. She watches a vulture swooping down to tear apart the innards of the carcass and cannot bear it. Ghrina is the emotion she has as she walks past holding her nose 

 

Next was bhayanak rasa. Fear arises from insecurities, from stories of killing or imprisonment. The dancers used unnatural, contorted postures and disturbing faces to show vikriti, moved like zombies and climbed down into the auditorium from the front of the stage. A dancer depicting a captive is whipped, struck by lightning and bitten by snakes. His fears come crawling out as hands  to overwhelm him, and a girl dancer screams at that depiction of bhayanak.  

 

Spirals, humanity’s most mysterious symbols, they are circles which encompass all. They are in the spiral shapes of DNA, in fingerprints, in hurricanes. From galaxies to vortices, spirals remind us of the origin of life. Spirals were used in the production to invoke vismay or wonderment. The dancers grabbed the panels of cloth and started to wind them up to form spirals. Krishnendu and Sharmila ji formed spirals through their dance and their hastas, while some dancers rolled on the floor. They leapt and bent backward. They depicted the animals on the earth, which again produce wonderment. 

 

 ‘The atma and the inner voice, the inner voice can see the centre of existence. All rolls round and round incessantly and unstoppably,’ said the voiceover. Sharmila ji and Krishnendu were enveloped in a swaddle of darkness, with golden globes of lights spreading like stars all around them. My impression of this part of the presentation was that the truth of life lies in these spirals. They are where life originates from and continues. In the last moment of vismay, I felt as if all the golden circles on the stage were an indication of the perennial presence and movement of spirals in our life, a form that has maximum surface area and potential .  

 

What was remarkable about the production was that simple human emotions, bhavas and rasas, were presented in a simple manner and choreography. The rhythm for the entire piece was very catchy and lent a certain mood to the choreography. The music was catchy, the vocals and rendition of the shlokas was very clear and accomplished. The props, stagecraft and textiles used created a different layer of depth and enjoyment.  

Pics: Anoop Arora