DIFFERENT REGISTERS
`When I close my eyes... '
C.S. LAKSHMI
Committed to dance: U.S. Krishna Rao and Chandrabaga Devi.
ON a Sunday in March, a great guru in Bharatanatyam passed away quietly. He was 94. U.S. Krishna Rao was a guru who, along with his wife Chandrabaga Devi, had changed the lives of many, including mine. As a young 13-year-old, my mother had taken me, a shy and clumsy girl at that time, to U.S. Krishna Rao to request him to teach me dance. A very beautiful cousin of mine had accompanied us. Krishna Rao took one look at me and said, "I will teach her." He asked my cousin if she also wanted to learn. "I am already learning," she said. He must have wondered if I was learning dance to compete with her. But he did not ask me. My cousin never pursued dance beyond arangetram. That is because she had only learnt dance. But what U.S. Krishna Rao and Chandrabaga Devi taught all of us was not just dance. They gave us an attitude towards life and a direction. Together they gave us the will to pursue what we wanted. More than anything else, they taught us to carry our bodies lightly and with joy.
Deep relationships
All of us called him Meshtare, which meant Master. But Chandrabaga Devi was always Chandam Aunty to us. Along with a guru-shishya relationship there was a deeper personal relationship that each one of us had with them. Everything the students did was acceptable to them provided we had a valid reason for it. I remember Sonal Mansingh literally ran away from home and landed on their doorsteps because she wanted to pursue dance and her family did not quite approve. She was waiting for them sitting on the doorsteps of their Seshadripuram residence when they returned after an outing. She told them she had run away from home. They took her in as if it was an everyday happening. The only time they felt apprehensive was when any student decided to marry without thinking if she can pursue dance. Not that they wanted to force but they felt that every student must keep the options open for keeping dance a part of her life always. Nothing gave them more joy than the fact that a student continued to perform. Sudharani Raghupathi had learnt from them earlier and when they saw her giving performances even after her marriage, they were so proud of her. Even students who were not so very well known got their continuous encouragement. A married student who had continued to dance even after motherhood once came for practice and after a while she had tears in her eyes. Chandrabaga Devi asked her what the matter was. She said that she was pregnant once again. Chandrabaga Devi told her she should not think of it as a hindrance. She pointed out how she herself had learnt dance with U.S. Krishna Rao from the legendary Pandanallur Meenakshi Sundaram Pillai when she had a small child. The student felt greatly encouraged and she now runs a dance class.
U.S Krishna Rao was actually a Chemistry lecturer who had a bright future in Chemistry, as he wanted to pursue further studies. But marrying Chandrabaga changed his life entirely and he made dance the core of his life. At a time when most of the dance compositions were in Telugu, he began composing for Kannada padams. All of us did an entire dance ballet based on Purandara Dasa compositions. He was the first one to think of an unusual ballet based on the poems and life of Akkamaha Devi. There was also another extraordinary ballet called The Temptation of Buddha. At times he took us out for performances. Sometimes it was a marriage in a remote small town or a spectacular place like Jog Falls. These trips were when we talked to him and told him our thoughts. These trips were also lessons of endurance for us. In one trip to a small town where we were performing in a marriage, they had dry latrines and there were pigs waiting right below the holes as we entered the latrines! We screamed and made a fuss but he told us that all that was part of life and that we should get on with our business. And the stage was not a very well constructed one either. It began to rain as we danced. Master was doing Shiva's role and just where he sat the raindrops began to drip. He behaved as if nothing was the matter and continued to dance. And once we were performing the Akkamaha Devi ballet and there was the scene where from behind the lingam Master appeared as Shiva to reveal himself to Akkamaha Devi. The lingam was a cardboard structure and it was a windy day. All of us huddled behind the cardboard including Master's son Jayadev who was our close buddy, and we held on to the cardboard for life. Master coming from behind the lingam was always a dramatic moment and when he appeared bare bodied with just a silk cloth around his waist, he looked gorgeous. That evening we had no time to admire him. We were busy fighting the wind.
Shared love
Chandrabaga Devi passed away in 1997 and a couple of years before that she had given me a long interview about her life and her dancing career and about being married to Krishna Rao. She spoke about their love for each other and their love for dance. She told me how he had refused to accept an award from the Karnataka government since it was only for him and did not include his wife. He had told them that he would accept the award only if it was for him and his wife. And later both of them were given the award together. I was going through a few photographs and there was one of hers sitting on his lap as a young married woman. I remembered that once someone had pointed to the photograph and asked her if it was a censored one. And she had replied, "There is no censorship for love." That is the kind of openness and non-ambiguity that both of them taught us along with dance. When I met Master a year after Chandam Aunty's death, he was teaching a student. He did not refer to her death but told me, "I am just biding my time." And now he is gone. Once a guru told me that when you close your eyes, you would always see your guru. When I close my eyes now I see Master with his supple body performing as Shiva. I would like to remember him like that.
C.S. Lakshmi is an independent researcher and a writer. She writes in Tamil under the pseudonym Ambai. She is the founder-trustee and director of SPARROW (Sound and Picture Archives for Research on Women).
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