When divide is just a blur!

Nonika Singh

For want of better word, she clubs herself in the category of entertainment. But what Manjari Chaturvedi, who has pioneered the term Sufi Kathak and a new style of dance form, provides is undeniably entertainment for the soul. Dancing to the kalaams of all-time great Sufi saint poets, she gives form to the formless or what she would call nirgun bhakti.

In Chandigarh for a dance tribute to Bulle Shah organised by the Department of Cultural Affairs Haryana, the attractive dancer not only talks at length about how her unusual dancing style came into being but also the need to preserve our traditions that epitomise our Ganga Jamuni teheejb. Growing up in Lucknow where she insists, ‘secularism is not taught but lived’ the inclination towards Sufi thought, qawaalis in particular, was perhaps a given. Since those were times when information couldn’t be Googled, she travelled to Central Asia to grasp music and dance associated with the Sufi thought.

To an untrained eye, swirling of dervishes and Kathak’s pirouettes might seem the same, but she elucidates, “Kathak’s chakar is a technique where you start and stop, while swirling is an unstoppable trance.” If she sums up her journey from chakar to trance in one word ‘beautiful’, the essence of Sufism too is summarised quite simply as love. The artistic representation of the poetics of Sufism, however, can’t be explained so easily. To take audiences where they can find the mysticism of Sufi poetry as much in the kalaams that accompany her performances as in her dancing style can only be demanding.

It’s not a question of whether Kathak lends itself easily to Sufism….she explains, “Dance is a spontaneous art and a language. Just as by itself alphabets alone can’t tell the story. So, the technique of dance by itself is incomplete.” Of course, when she decided to use her grammar of Kathak to represent Sufi poetry, there was expected resistance, “anything new always evokes a strong reaction.” But she smiles, “I have survived nearly 20 years.” And not alone at that. As she created The Sufi Kathak Foundation she has nearly 400 artistes on board.

While till date she remains wonder-struck at our immense poetic wealth she is saddened by how Punjab has squandered away its cultural traditions. “Let Honey Singh remain, let dhink chak dhink chak also be there but should that be the only music emanating from Punjab? Shouldn’t someone take the couplets of Baba Bulle Shah or Baba Farid and set it to music.”

She so hopes her performance accompanied by Ranjhan Ali, a talented qawaal from Amritsar at Tagore Theatre, would be a wakeup call for Punjab. And no she is not impressed by the solitary example of Wadali Brothers and wants more names in that list. Her own list by the way is rather exhaustive. One of her endeavours Baayees Khwaja Project is dedicated each year to one saint poet.

She rues, "People living in our metroes don't have a clue to our traditions." So they are amazed when she tells them that at a dargah in Kakori saffron is the colour and verses by two poets are dedicated to Lord Krishna. As she takes these messages to audiences across India and the world, she avers, "Nothing blurs the divide better than our tradition of music, dance and poetry."

As some elements are getting belligerent about creating rather than obliterating the divide, she, who traverses both lines quips, “Indeed, even I am under threat from orthodox elements of both sides.” And to these misguided sections she warns, “Threaten this composite heritage and nothing will remain.” She, however, stands determined to be the link and the light, swathe in colours of Sufi saint poets, she reintroduces audiences to many layers of our culture and traditions.

Bringing out 
Punjab’s best  

She calls him a hidden gem. Ranjhan Ali, who collaborated with Manjari Chaturvedi for the first time, calls qawaalis sadabahar music that just can’t fade away. In the kalaams of Baba Bulle Shah, Shah Hussain et al he   deems rests Punjab’s intrinsic culture and no onslaught of modernization can diminish its beauty.  

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