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When the spirit meets a feat

ANJANA RAJAN

Cherished memories blended with precious moments when Chandralekha received the Legends of India Lifetime Achievement Award.

One has always known of her as the quintessential firebrand. The air was full of expectation as the crowd on the India International Centre Fountain Lawns waited for Chandralekha to arrive and receive the Legends of India Lifetime Achievement Award this past week.

The backdrop of the stage depicted a larger-than-life Chandralekha frozen in a flamboyant pirouette, the black skirt billowing about her black-clad legs, the characteristic white hair flying about her shoulders. Chandralekha full of passion and energy, the image not at all reminiscent of `traditional' Bharatanatyam, the form she was trained in by Guru Kanchipuram Elappa Pillai. Another image showed the dancer in an indecipherable yogic asana: hands, legs, head in anything but the `normal' juxtaposition.

Both were quintessential Chandralekha, the dancer who had the courage, back in the early 1960s, to declare that Bharatanatyam carried no relevance for her, at a time when the rest of the country was still preening itself on the renaissance of its classical dance forms. And the courage to return to the stage recharged after a hiatus of nearly 20 years. Plenty of time to think — a luxury many of today's busy performers seem to deny themselves, and consequently, the audience. What was most significant perhaps, about her immense popularity when she made her comeback, was that she was appreciated by both the lay audiences and the stalwarts of tradition.

With such memories abounding, it came as a jolt to see the fearless Chandralekha being brought in on a wheelchair. Ill for some time and barely out of hospital, she addressed the gathering through her long time associate Sadanand Menon who read out her acceptance speech, while she exuded an air of rather exquisite serenity, her eyes shining and her famous hair tamed into a neat plait.

Unmistakeable spirit

But even with a `proxy' voice, Chandra's spirit was unmistakeable. While graciously accepting the award, she mentioned that she had always been wary of the two words `legend' and `achievement'. She felt that one of the most creative people of the 20th Century, Harendranath Chattopadhyaya, one of those whom "modern India has chosen to forget" was someone she term a legend, as well as her guru Elappa Pillai. As for achievement, she said she considered planting 75 neem trees a greater feat than any art she was famous for.

Touching on notions of the significance of external recognition and `lasting' contribution, she closed with a beautiful comment. "It is important for us to learn to walk towards ourselves."

One remembered a moment in dance history when, perhaps, the legend of Chandralekha was born. In her early choreographic forays she borrowed students from Rukmini Devi Arundale's Kalakshetra, precision-trained in geometric body postures, to execute her abstract ideas. That Rukmini Devi allowed her students to participate in the work of this `iconoclast' was notable in itself. But if anyone still had any doubts, she allayed them one day after a performance in Kalakshetra's theatre. The doyen of Bharatanatyam took a garland from the Nataraja idol on the stage and placed it lovingly round Chandralekha's neck. The story was told and retold by breathless dance students. It was plain for all to see that only a genius could recognise a genius.

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