The lamps are lit – The musicians are ready. The tabla starts pulsing gently – And somewhere in there he gets his cue. There is absolutely no rush, because the man in there has spent 5 decades mastering the art, earning the right to make the audience wait.
He was four years old when he first tied his ghungroos. He didn’t choose the gharana, it was handed down to him. Awarded with the Sangeet Natak Akademi in 2003 is the legendary Rajendra Gangani Ji.
For those of you who don’t know who I am talking about, in simple words, for the kathak community Guruji is spoken of almost like god … And it has been my privilege to have learnt under him.
I remember watching him for the first time as a student and understanding almost instantly – that what I was witnessing could not be taught the way everything else was taught in regular classes. He would demonstrate a movement and there would be a second of inaction until all of us would scatter around trying to find the one in all of us who understood what he had just done. Obviously there would be no one like this considering guruji has no replacement… It’s not that the steps were difficult, individually we could interpret each of the steps. But putting it together it would look nothing like the way it did when he did it.
That’s the thing about watching guruji dance – you don’t just see choreography, you witness every part of his body moving…
The one thing that will never leave me is the time when guruji created a tarana in the span of half an hour! I was just so spellbound; I don’t think anything would make me feel the same amazement. He composed one entirely from scratch – not even referring to older taranas. A complete tarana, structured, rhythmically sound, ready to be choreographed. We just sat there staring at him, because for most composers, that would take a long time. For him, it was just a Saturday afternoon with a bunch of dancers.
This is my fourth year with guruji and I think he helped me build the discipline that riyaaz demands from me as a dancer. Even though I’ve had my fair share of time with him I still continue to be surprised by his tihais and thaats. Maybe that’s what it is to learn with guruji. It was never to sit unsurprised but rather to live in that blend of confusion and awe without feeling overwhelmed.