In full flight
ANJANA RAJAN
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Guru Munna Shukla, who just received the SNA Award, on his career and the dharma of his art.
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Photo: V.V. Krishnan
KEY TO HAPPINESS Guru Munna Shukla in his classroom in New Delhi.
Holi is over but the fervour remains. In his classroom at New Delhi's Bharatiya Kala Kendra, Guru Munna Shukla is cheerfully conducting a rehearsal in preparation for his troupe's performance in Panchkula this week. As his students whirl about in his composition depicting the Holi revelry of Krishna and the gopis of Vrindavan, the musicians learn their cues, and Guruji, though standing in one place directing them, looks set to take flight any moment. But then the veteran Kathak dancer has more reasons to celebrate than a festival just over or a performance coming up. He has just received the Sangeet Natak Akademi award for his contribution to Indian classical dance.
On the other hand, he doesn't need a mere award to keep him happy, since that would imply he wasn't happy without it. In the often murky world of art awards, he maintains his equilibrium with advice from his granduncle Lacchu Maharaj of the Lucknow gharana. "My nanaji gave me an immortal gem," he says. "He told me, never let frustration enter your life. You will always find people who get more recognition, more awards than you. You may have better credentials, but they have better fate! But think of all your elders who may not have got even the recognition you have."
This advice is the key to his happiness, says the sprightly veteran, who retired from the Kathak Kendra a couple of years ago and has been teaching at the Bharatiya Kala Kendra and at East Delhi's Kala Vihar since then.
Lighter side of art
Looking anything but retired, he relates the adjustments he has made after teaching for three decades at a national institution for the art. "I realised that the standard of the art is falling. Students have conflicting interests and careers. The musicians too are preoccupied with demands for light music rather than classical. I adjust my compositions to these requirements, though I work with complete honesty to my art. Only the rare students dedicate themselves to the dance full time. With them I am able to work at the level I used to earlier."
He recounts how during the performance of one such student, a fellow artiste tapped him and asked, "Where do we get to see such work nowadays?" Says the guru with relish, "I told him, right here!" Not that this is the first time he is exposed to the lighter side of the arts. Early in his career he worked with film artistes. Born to dance, Guru Munna Shukla is the son of Vidyavati Shukla, a classical vocalist and daughter of the famed Kathak maestro Acchan Maharaj. His early training in Kathak was under his father, Sunder Lal Shukla, and later he continued under his uncle the illustrious Birju Maharaj. P.N. Deshpande the Marathi director invited him to act in his film, but the young Munna refused saying he did not know Marathi, despite director's stopgap suggestions. Later though, he directed Marathi plays and trained artistes from the Film and Television Institute, Pune, including Jaya Bhaduri, Anil Dhawan and others.
Before that, he was in Delhi since 1961, training under Pandit Birju Maharaj, then a young upcoming artiste himself, at Bharatiya Kala Kendra. From 1976 to 2004 he worked in Kathak Kendra, which was established separately from BKK in the 1970s, and says Guruji, he is particularly pleased to be back at BKK now, bringing his career full circle. AIFACS auditorium and Sapru House were the major venues back then, he says, and he performed extensively there, before the Punjabi theatre companies "banged nails" to spoil the latter's stage.
Speaking of sets and lights, he feels, regardless of contemporary expectations, these are more or less superfluous for a good dancer. "The more gadgets we get the more we lose our inner peace," he says, speaking as much about theatrical trappings as cell phones.
But times change nonetheless. He agrees, saying, "What is important is not to forsake the "dharma" (intrinsic code) of each art form."
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