Tagore, the awakening voice in Indian renaissance

BY Sivanandini DURAISWAMY

“Let me light the lamp,”
says the star.
“And never debate if it will help to remove the Darkness.”

Tagore was an Awakening Voice in the Indian Renaissance. He founded Shanatiniketan an educational Institution known as the Abode of Peace. Modelled on the ancient Ashrama style, Shantiniketan through the years developed into Vishwa Bharati, a Universal Global Consciousness.

To commemorate his one hundred and fiftieth birth anniversary, a well known group of artistes from Vishwa Bharati is to perform the dance dramas Sapmochan at the John R De Silva Memorial Hall on October 3 and Chanadalika at the Ramakrishna Hall on October 4. These dance drams are a celebration as a tribute to Tagore’s creativity in music and dance

Tagore adopted the dance drama style, inspired by Indian ideas drawn from traditional sources to express his thoughts on Universal Truths. His admiration and deep reference to the Buddha helped him to render various themes into sublime narratives.

The Indian society at that time was very rigid regarding dancing and singing as the understanding of these were restricted to prostiutues and courtesans! It was Tagore’s literary genius that introduced the concept of dance drama as a possible tool to defy these regressive norms of society. One is reminded here of Rukmani Devi Arundale who also had to fight these regressive norms to bring back Bharata Natyam into society in South India. Bharata Natyam was considered the monopoly of the Deva Dasis, the temple dancers! Girls were not allowed to pursue a course in dancing. To combat this, she learnt dancing herself, founded Kalakshetra and performed on the stage.

To artistes such as Tagore and Rukmani Devi, dance and music are purely expressions of emotions in spiritual ecstasy, sacrosanct and universal.

Chandalika

Tagore had a lasting regard for the Buddha especially the rational and humanistic aspects of his teachings. He was greatly inspired by the Buddhist ideals of compassion and forgiveness.

These appealed to his creative genius and the Buddhist principle of man’s social equality was particularly alluring to his own Hindu concept of “Divinity in man.”

The dance drama Chandalika is a dramatic expression of this ideology in the form of the age old struggle of the marginalised section of Indian society wanting to be recognised and attain the status of equality and humanism.

It is a visual presentation of conflict between marginality and spirituality. It is purely dramatic where the theme evolves through attractive dances, mime, delightful melodies and choreography.

He rendered the conflict of the Untouchable into a sublime narrative by transforming it with his creative imagination, tinting it with his own humanistic philosophy of life calling it Chandalika.

In this dance sequence, he features only three characters namely, Prakriti, Mother and Ananda. The mother and daughter Prakriti represent the marginalised who are in conflict with the spiritual world of Ananda.

Prakriti is a young girl anguished with her life as an untouchable where she is denied even simple pleasures like buying bangles from the bangle seller who refuses to sell and the flower seller who refuses to sell flowers. Young girls wear bangles and wear flowers in their hair but she was denied these.

In retaliation, she emerges as the voice of the silenced and marginalised. She is a rebel who questions social norms that relegated her to an existence of an untouchable.

Prakriti’s mother has magical powers and once when the water dried up in the village she was ordered to find water. However, when she finds water, her family is not allowed to use the same water since they are untouchables! Her magical power does not redeem them from their suffering and humiliation.

She meets Ananda the disciple of the Buddha who comes in search of water. “Give me water,” asks the bhikkhu to which Prakriti resists by voicing her powerlessness to quench the bhikkhu's thirst saying “Iam a chandalini.”

“No! you are not impure. You are the child of the same Almighty as others,” said the bhikkhu awakening her to a moment of truth.

All this while she thought of herself as a victim of social stigma and she was suddenly pushed into a moment of recognition.

“This is my new birth,” she tells her mother “ I am now purified by satisfying the thirst of a bhikkhu. I am now aware of my “Self.” I know what freedom tastes like.” She is jubilant.

The dance drama begins with the inspiring words, “Give me water,” where the mother and daughter confront each other over the words.

Ananda addresses Prakriti as a normal human being and not as an untouchable, Chandalini. Besides indicating his physical need, water symbolises the regenerative image common in our religious traditions. In the Indian context, the request for water by a bhikkhu from an untouchable violates a social norm for at that time, it was unheard of for a bhikkhu to ask for water or food from an untouchable.

In this request for water, Prakriti’s sense of being an outcaste is completely negated awakening her blind subjugated mind to equality and awakens the “Self” in her! From the bondage of untouchability a new Prakriti is born defying all oppressive customs revolving against society itself.

Prakriti now revolts against the society she lives in. We now see a very possessive Prakriti, yearning for Ananada. And in this attitude of possessiveness she commits a flaw – the desire to possess Ananda and she steps beyond the religious and ethical boundaries.

But the bhikkhu in his pursuit of nirvana is a celibate beyond worldly pleasures and obligations. He is greatly respected for his celibacy and morality.

However, Prakriti to push herself further, falls in love with the bhikkhu and wants to marry him She seeks her mother’s help to use her magical spells and incantations to bring Ananda to her.

The mother refused to do so remembering their position as untouchables, and said that this could be dangerous. However, Prakriti compels her mother to use her spell.

At the beginning Ananda immersed in his inner spiritual “Self” ignores her and continues wit his chanting and prayers.

But Prakriti later resorts to violent means saying, “If my longing can draw him here and if that is a crime, then I will commit it, I care nothing for the code which holds only punishment and no comfort.”

The magical spell works and affects the bhikkhu tormenting him

He begins to change and this yearning is against the concept of Buddhism which forbids Bhikkhus to indulge in sex and worldly pleasures. He gets completely bogged down losing his spiritual light that gave him a divine radiance and purity. He was now totally emaciated.

It is only when Ananda appears in this broken mutilated state that she realises that her action was foolish and wrong. She requests her mother to take back the spell.

Her mother does so, falls at his feet and dies surrendering and asking him for forgiveness.

Prakriti repents and surrenders in shame. She realises that love can never be forced or possessed through the power of magic and incantations.

And Ananda returns chanting Buddham saranam gachchami…. The chant reverberates through the atmosphere and gradually fades away as Ananda retunrs to his ashram.

It is through the dance drama that the tender theme of Chandalika is enacted. Prakriti is able to articulate her anger and love through dance movements and expressions – anger in being pushed aside because of her social status which is forced upon her and love for a bhikkhu who respects and acknowledges her as a human being. She surrenders herself and her mother dies at the bhikkhu's feet asking forgiveness.