Leela Samson
For a child, the happiest and most natural environment to grow in matters. Appearance or physical comforts have no real worth for a child, especially if attention is not drawn to them. Starting to learn dance when still a child is therefore advantageous. This is because the rigour, sweat and even pain are of little consequence when you are six years old. In fact, it is enjoyable and a challenge. The physical demands made on the body in the early years are not felt as strongly as when a child is in their teens or older.
Simplicity of form and structure at this stage of teaching and learning — the reduction of life’s needs to the most essential, a premium on cleanliness of the body and mind, the value of silence, the value of rigorous practice, reverence for life in every form, respect for the elderly — these are everyday lessons in a good dance class. In order to understand the true worth of these values, individuality and freedom of expression must be granted to the child, and punishment eschewed from casting a shadow on the learning process.
A reverence for the Indian concepts of bhakti or devotion and shraddha or persistent work are important to understand. So too the spirit of sadhana — or mindful practice. A knowledge of the philosophy of this land, its religions, its myth, its architectural norms, its poetic traditions, its musical forms, its scriptures — all these are valid and necessary inputs to the learning. Discipline is fundamental to the learning process. A spirit of nationalism and a desire to understand our roots are essential for each of us and for India as a nation to take her rightful place in the world.
To be able to see beauty in the small, the insignificant, the discarded, the marginal teaches you much about life. Shiva, in His garb, adorns himself with all that is shunned by society as being dirty, repulsive and ugly. The perfect chemist, He transforms all these into symbols of the highest beauty. It is important when learning the big things, to pay attention to and to appreciate the value of the little things. This deconstruction of physical movement, of bhava or facial expression and of lofty ideas make the journey of learning more palatable and within the grasp of the child.
One such thing is the value of ceremony or ritual in our lives. In spite of the vast traditions of ritual in our country — so much a part of India’s religious practices, military traditions and societal celebrations, the urban, educated Indian has either discarded these or is self-conscious about them because we have forgotten its true meaning and purpose. Ceremony, when performed with grace is the blending of form and spirit. One must be guided by this grace of spirit in action. The beauty of such ceremony is that it invokes energy. It is a pact with decorum and grace.
What then, is a cultured world? Our definitions of war, of greed and of cruelty have been altered in our time. We have now brought war, greed, avarice and cruelty into our homes and pretend they do not exist, only because an outsider is not the perpetrator. In our own home, it is merely doing what must be done.
The generation before us lamented their world. Partition brought them so much grief. We have many, many deep wounds of our own time that cut to the very bone. Will they ever be different for our children and for theirs? It is rightly said — as we sow, so shall we reap. Each of us realizes the truth of those words in our lifetime. Smaller communities, with different cultures are left out of the broad roads to progress. They are smothered by monolith, self-righteous Gods, who censure belief in the many other Gods, in the mannerisms and cultures they cannot understand. Alas, we live in a small world that demands conformity.
What about India, a land that has so much to give the world from its past and a people that have so much to give to the future? Is our culture strong enough for us to choose not a different path, but the right one? Most of us have no doubt that our culture is strong. But in striving to be part of a world culture, to be recognized as aware citizens of the ‘accepted’ world, have we forsaken what treasures our culture has to offer? It truly seems that while the world realizes the strength and passion of their own identities, India slowly forgets.
“Each race contributes something essential to the world’s civilisation in the course of its own self-expression and self-realization. The character built up in solving its own problems, in the experience of its own misfortunes, is itself a gift which each offers the world. The essential contribution of India then, is simply her Indian-ness; her great humiliation would be to substitute or to have substituted for this own character or svabhāva a cosmopolitan veneer, for then indeed she must come before the world empty-handed,” said the great Indologist — (Ananda K. Coomaraswamy in ‘The Dance of Shiva’. )
Our architects and sculptors, writers and poets, musicians and dancers — they paid homage to Art, to Nature, to Love, to Aspiration. Every independent thinker and philosopher walked this land and sowed the seed of his philosophy here. There was no shame in seeking a different path or in living by another set of values. Every man chose his ‘God’ and changed it at will, as long that faith sustained him. Faith is not entitlement or privilege. It is duty and service. Interpreting one’s faith is the prerogative of every individual — privately and directed to his inner being. What it now seems — is loud, vociferous, dogmatic and public.
Ken Robinson, a British educationist talking about creative expression in education says, ‘All children are born artists. We get ‘educated out of’ creativity because of the fear of being wrong. The world started education from the legs upwards. But in this century, we focus on the head, wanting only to produce people who live in their heads and who look and treat their bodies as transporters of their heads.’
We have to realize that education does not imply the mere acquisition of training that enables a man to find an honorable livelihood, but implies a mind that is truly cultivated and is a total expression of his personality.
About the Author
Leela spent her childhood in Kalakshetra. She taught in Delhi and choreographed for an ensemble called Spanda. As a soloist, Leela is a sensitive interpreter of the form. She was Director, Kalakshetra, and served as Chairperson, Sangeet Natak Akademi and the Central Board of Film Certification. Since her debut in 2015, she has acted in several films including Mani Ratnam’s O Kadhal Kanmani, OK Jaanu, Sillu Karupatti, Putham Pudu Kaalai and Kaali Khuhi.
