Delhi 360°: Mazhar Ali Khan’s View from the Lahore Gate

Images of a city now lost in time

Book title: Delhi 360°: Mazhar Ali Khan’s View from the Lahore Gate

Author: J.P. Losty

Publisher: Roli

Pages: 92

Price: Rs 1,295

By the mid-nineteenth century, Mughal power was on the wane in India. The ageing monarch himself was dependent on the paltry pension doled out by the British, who had established themselves as India’s new political masters. In 1846, Mazhar Ali Khan, one of the finest topographical artists of the time, was commissioned by the British Resident to paint the still-grand monuments and edifices that made up the Mughal city. The result was an enchanting and comprehensive five-metre-long panorama — part of the collection of the British Library — that captures the cityscape in extraordinary detail.

The book brings together, for the first time, this body of work in its entirety, along with inscriptions in Persian and Urdu. The accompanying essays, rich in information and written in a lucid style, help place Khan’s seminal work in its specific historical and artistic context. Conceived and elegantly produced by Pramod Kapoor, the text in the book has been provided by J.P. Losty, formerly in charge of the Indian visual collections of the British Library. Ratish Nanda, a discerning conservationist, has also provided critical inputs on the present state of the Old City and of the Red Fort.

As one of the essays points out, the importance of Khan’s panorama — which comprises five sheets of paper depicting palace buildings, mosques and other locations, including the Jama Masjid and Chandni Chowk in watercolour — is as a record of the original breathtaking appearance of the city and of the changes that were wrought on it later, first by the uprising in 1857 and then by the planners of independent India. It also contains glimpses of the aesthetics that Khan followed in his art. Tight control over space and an emphasis on detail were the hallmarks of this grand production.

Left depicts the Diwan-i Khas from the west and the interior. Top provides a stunning view of the Jama Masjid from the Dariba Bazaar. Bottom left offers a delightful view of Salimgarh and the Red Fort from upstream, while bottom right shows Ludlow Castle — seat of the British Residency in Delhi — along with Metcalfe’s sowarry.

Khan’s panorama would interest historians, conservationists as well as lay readers. Sadly, it would also remind them of India’s inability to protect the capital’s rich architectural legacy.

UDDALAK MUKHERJEE

Published on January 20, 2012

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1120120/jsp/northeast/story_15029258.jsp

The Legends of Pensam

Evolution of a village

Book title: The Legends of Pensam

Author: Mamang Dai

Publisher: Penguin India

Pages: 192

Price: Rs 200

The Legends of Pensam is a collection of stories of three generations in a village in Arunachal Pradesh. It is a combination of legends and superstitions, which are intertwined with the lives of the village folks.

The book is divided into four parts constituting the phases of evolution and growth of the village, the lives and loves of the characters, and their passage through the various stages of life. While each story is complete in itself, there is a basic link between all of them.

The book begins with stories based on the first generation of villagers.

The village is portrayed in the primitive age with residents sustaining on hunting and primitive agriculture. The two men who stand out were the chief, Lutor and the interpreter for the British officials, the father of Rakut. There are also myths and legends wound into the stories, though the narrative gets somewhat laboured on occasions.

The second part begins with the setting up of an administrative unit by the British. A road is built and “civilization” enters. Two persons arrive from the outside world to know more about the village folks. They hear a few stories of the village and its people, participate in village activities and a feast, and then depart.

The third part covers the second generation of people, now adults. They have their loves and marriages — some happy, others somewhat tragic. This leads to the appearance of the third generation. They receive better education. Some go out into the world and achieve academic and professional distinction. They then return to the village. Social and economic development leads to construction of a satellite township where the elite congregate. The link with the traditional past is not broken. Modernisation sets in.

The fourth part leads to the aging and passing away of most of the second generation. The third generation enters middle age. A fourth generation appears, in its infancy.

All this culminates in the final story — On Stage. The author exhibits amazing descriptive powers and paints a vivid picture of the denouement.

Mamang Dai has done a good job in collecting these stories. She has woven them into a sequence through the relationships. The third and fourth parts have been very well written. The fourth part builds up into a good climax with the last chapter.

Another notable feature is that she introduces a strong element of thinking in her characters in this part. The old people sit and ruminate on the passage of their lives. They think of the past and friends departed, and engage in some philosophic thought. All of these are skilfully interwoven into the whole fabric.

What stands out is Dai’s descriptive ability. One can virtually see the green mountains, the flowing rivers – sometimes becoming raging torrents, the kitchen garden and the planting of paddy in the fields. Whenever she paints a picture in words she imparts a certain vividness and reality that few writers could achieve. It is very rare among Indian writers. Her choice of words is mostly simple. There is no superfluity. Her style is simple and concise.

On the whole it is a very good read, leaving one with the hope to read more of this writer.

(EOM)

H.W.T. SYIEM

Published on January 20, 2012

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1120120/jsp/northeast/story_15029270.jsp

Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest

LOOMING LARGE

- Gentlemen without oxygen

Name of the Book: Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest

Writer: Wade Davis,

Publisher: The Bodley Head

Pages: 655

Price: Rs 699

From the outset, the British adopted a proprietory attitude towards Mount Everest, particularly after the Great Trigonometrical Survey revealed it to be the world’s highest peak. This persisted after World War, or the Great War, as Wade Davis — the author of this dense, packed, but fascinating book — insists on calling it. Britain’s successful record of exploration in the 19th century had been challenged by Robert Peary reaching the North Pole (1909) and Roald Amundsen (1911) its opposite. Amundsen’s vastly better organized expedition beat the national hero, Robert Scott, whose incompetent leadership resulted in his death and those of his companions — but who then became a hero in glorious failure. (1912 is the centenary of Scott’s death).

Davis does not make this point, but the iconic figure of George Mallory, whose walk into mountaineering myth with his untrained companion, Sandy Irvine, seems just another glorious failure celebrated for the manly virtues of the English upper-middle class, sought to be inculcated in its single-sex public schools. But Davis is not out to simply recapture an era when exploration was supposedly more “pure” or “untainted” by commercial concerns. He has focused on the first three expeditions — 1921, 1922 and 1924. In his view, the quest for Everest may have begun as a “grand imperial gesture” to redeem the failure to reach the Poles, but it became a national exercise to assert national pride after the carnage of the Western Front.

Of the 26 climbers on the first three expeditions, 20 had seen service in the war. Six had been severely wounded — John de Vars Hazard’s wound had never healed completely, which severely limited his usefulness on the mountain. Others had lost siblings and close friends. Three as army surgeons had had to deal with the horrific consequences of sustained artillery fire and poison gas. Among them, Arthur Wakefield lost his religious faith, while Howard Somervell spent the rest of his life in a mission hospital in South India. To the mountaineers, Davis writes, Everest was “a sentinel in the sky, a place and destination of hope and redemption, a symbol of continuity in a world gone mad”. Davis chooses to begin with the memorial service on Great Gable, for climbers lost in the Great War — ironically on the same day that Mallory and Irvine disappeared — and that sets the tone for the rest of the book.

There may have been a search for some sort of transcendence, but Davis does not neglect the less elevated aspects of the expeditions, relating them to the social milieu, the attitudes and the human frailties of the day. What comes across is just how badly prepared and poorly equipped these expeditions were, for the technical and physical challenges that climbing Everest presented. (The discovery of Mallory’s body in 1999, clad in tweed, wool and hobnailed boots, with a hemp rope around his waist, only underscored this point.) There was a question of whether it was “gentlemanly” to use oxygen, with Arthur Hinks — dominant figure of the Everest Committee, with no climbing experience — arguing against its use. (Mallory eventually came round to its use, and most climbers use it today.) Still worse were the xenophobia and snobbery that deprived George Ingle Finch — arguably the best ice climber of his day — of a place on the final expedition because he was an Australian, outside the public school climbing fraternity, and because of his complicated private life. Climbers like Frank Smythe, one of the great figures of the inter-war period, were left out (he would climb Kamet and re- discover the Valley of Flowers). Men like Harold Raeburn, physically and mentally unfit, were included.

What add both length, but also human interest, to the story are the detailed biographies of the members of each expedition, particularly those who had lived with the constant threat of death during their war service. These potted biographies are included, the first time one of the major players enters the scene. The war becomes the unspoken backdrop. These men had seen so much of death that “life mattered less than the moments of being alive”. True to their upbringing these men never spoke of the war, but it was always present.

Inevitably, Mallory looms large, both because of what Davis calls his “unprecedented level of athleticism” and “a mental focus utterly modern in its intensity”. According to Geoffrey Keynes (brother of John Maynard Keynes), Mallory had a premonition of death, but could not resist the lure of the mountain. Yet he could be untidy, forgetful and technologically incompetent — his decision to take Irvine on his last climb rather than the more experienced Edward Norton or even Noel Odell, may have been because of the young man’s technical expertise with the oxygen cylinders.

Other figures, who have had a somewhat shadowy existence in the literature of the period come to life in this telling. Wade Davis is partial to Oliver Wheeler, a fellow Canadian, who later became surveyor general of India. It was Wheeler, the competent and gritty surveyor who found the northern approach to Everest, while Mallory simply flailed about on the first expedition. Davis is rightly critical of Mallory’s rather superior attitude towards this “colonial”, as he is about the outlook displayed by many of the sahibs towards the sherpas. Here, too, there were differences. For Mallory, Tibet was “a hateful place”; Somervell grieved at the death of the sherpas in 1922, and saw the beauty of the landscape (he was a talented artist).

The book’s subtitle gives a sense of its scope. Davis has succeeded in bringing together a vast amount of disparate material, although some may feel overwhelmed by its wealth of detail. (Among the many things that this, somewhat overlong, book explores is the culture of the public school and the homo-erotic atmosphere of early-20th-century Cambridge, the Bloomsbury group, Jallianwala Bagh, and the Younghusband expedition.) The book ends with an annotated bibliography, which is well worth reading. He is sceptical of claims that Mallory and Irvine reached the summit. But, in his words, “they did on that fateful day, climb higher than any human being before them….That they were able to do so, given all that they had endured, is surely achievement enough.”

DAYITA DATTA

Published on January 13, 2012

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1120106/jsp/opinion/story_14966157.jsp

A Glimpse of the Life and Time of Piyali Barua

A hero resurrected

Book title: A Glimpse of the Life and Time of Piyali Barua

Author: Amulya Ch. Sarma

Publisher: Purbanchal Prakash

Pages: 95

Price: 200

Biography is a tricky terrain. Especially, if it happens to be on a much-written-about historical figure. It requires daunting research and dizzying fact-finding trips to libraries and tonnes of references of earlier biographies to go through.

Retired principal of Jorhat College, Amulya Ch. Sarma, did not have any such dilemma while writing his short biography of Assamese freedom fighter, Piyali Barua.

By his own admission, there is not much evidence about the man who gave Assam a place in the freedom struggle.

Plainly, if a bit unimaginatively named, A Glimpse of the Life and Time of Piyali Barua , makes no pretences of reaching the realm of high biographical literature.

The author begins by laying to rest decades of confusion over freedom fighters Piyali Phukan and Piyali Barua.

Barua, the eponymous hero, had probably not even been born when Piyali Phukan was hanged by the British.

While Piyali Phukan was captured and executed in 1830 by the Sivasagar tank for collecting arms and recruiting men to fight against the British, Piyali Barua was hanged in 1858 along with Maniram Dewan in Jorhat, the last metropolis of the Ahom kingdom, a year after the Sepoy Mutiny broke out.

The capital punishment shocked Assam, which had not seen public executions before, not even during the Ahom era.

Sarma begins at the beginning, explaining the waning of the Ahom era following Burmese and later British invasion.

The British helped defeat the Burmese but did not keep their word of handing over power to Assam rulers after the war. Like in the rest of India, the British East India Company Assam swallowed Assam and there began a tale of massive social and economical change, explains Sarma.

While some welcomed the reforms and the foreign goods that added to their comfort, most resented the new administrative and revenue structures. From this resentment, Piyali Phukan’s 1829-30 rebellion and born and soon crushed.

Piyali Barua was born and raised in this dual atmosphere of reverence towards and resentment against the British and their ways of life. But from all the evidence available, the author surmised that Barua was a man of simple disposition, who shunned the Western bent of his times.

The man who goaded him to join 1857 war of Independence and shared the execution plank with him was Maniram Dewan, the charismatic aristocrat with four wives and huge wealth. Sarma takes care to point out the stark difference between Maniram Dewan and Piyali Barua. Maniram Dewan, an elderly man with considerable power, had won the admiration of the British for his knowledge and intellect. He liked the ways of the British but was trying to restore power to an Assam king and petitioned the British rulers in that regard.

His petition rejected, Maniram Dewan began coaxing youths to launch a war against the British, one of them being Piyali Barua.

Sarma ends with a moving account of the execution but the point of this short chronicle is rendition of justice. The author feels historians have been unjust to Piyali Barua, first mistaking him for the earlier freedom fighter and then suppressing his story under the more flamboyant tales of Maniram Dewan.

Sarma achieves that, but little else.

The narration is tedious, and the language dull — one of the reasons why fascinating tales from the past are ignored by students and “history” is regarded a “bore”.

Poor editing makes it an irritating read — “born” becomes “barn” in one place, for instance — an unacceptable glitch for books of such import.

SOMA BANERJEE

Published on January 13, 2012

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1120113/jsp/northeast/story_14992505.jsp

The Diamond Queen: Elizabeth II and her People

LIFE OF A GREAT READER

- Monarchy and the element of make-believe

Name of the book: The Diamond Queen: Elizabeth II and her People

Writer: Andrew Marr

Publisher: Macmillan

Price: Rs 650

Japan’s Prince Akishino says “it will become necessary” to have an age limit, or “retirement age”, for Japanese emperors. Bhutan’s new constitution already provides for the king to step down at 65. But driven by duty, dedication and determination, Britain’s Queen Elizabeth goes marching on at 85, recalling Farouk of Egypt’s prediction that the world would ultimately be left with five crowned heads — four in the pack of cards and one in London.

A veteran like Andrew Marr is too sophisticated to recount such a passé tale in this celebration of the queen’s diamond jubilee next year. But that just about sums up the message of his thoughtful, incisive and erudite, but also carefully selective, tome. If he permits some variation on the theme, it’s that future monarchs might not live in London, preferring Windsor Castle while Buckingham Palace is used for State occasions.

This defence of both the institution and the person — admitting the present incumbent doesn’t leave much space between them — is all the more effective for pointing out flaws in the style of devil’s advocate and for the admission that the author once harboured republican sentiments. He quotes the tart words of Queen Elizabeth’s tart sister that “every tart in London was getting in” to explain the abolition of debutante presentations and the Season. There’s a delightful story about George V’s sister telephoning her brother and beginning the conversation with “Hello, you old fool” only to have the Buckingham Palace operator cut in to say, “Beg pardon, your Royal Highness, His Majesty is not yet on the line.”

There aren’t too many such stories because Marr is not a gossip writer and his life of “Reader No. 1” who “has seen every significant secret Foreign Office cable or telegram, and much of the MI6 advice, about international crises and problems from the 1950s onwards” is really a justification of what others might derisively refer to as the “welfare”, “democracy” or “suburban” monarchy. This doesn’t amount to a plea for monarchy in general: it’s Elizabeth Mountbatten, to give her her rightful married name, who has made it indispensable for present-day Britain and, curiously, seemingly even more indispensable for a succession of hard-headed British prime ministers. Tony Blair may have been swept off his feet in the film starring Helen Mirren as the queen, but Marr confirms that in real life Harold Wilson and the queen made a meal of the weekly audience.

No one knows what she discussed with him or with any other prime minister. But the Reader No.1 tag suggests a serious person with an active mind and great resources of energy who is able to draw on her own vast experience to inform and advise. The queen read Bagehot as part of her training and Marr indicates that she takes seriously her right to be consulted, to advise and to warn. “Ministers express astonishment and wary pleasure at how much the Queen has thought about their dilemmas. Though she takes no decisions she can be a provoker of second thoughts and a catalyst for deeper thinking.” She also emerges as an astute tactician, not above setting her own senior staff to battle No. 10 when some innovation not to her liking is being contemplated.

But what does the royal family represent? Lord Stamfordham, George V’s secretary who helped reinvent the monarchy, projected it as “a living power for good”. Marr speaks of the queen as “head of our morality”. There is no admission that open adultery and fornication, contrived divorce and even doubts about the paternity of some who are high in the line of succession might have brought the royals closer to their subjects. Such earthiness is beyond Marr’s ken.

Instead, his early pages reveal how much the Ind. Imp. fantasy meant to the royal family. In Gone With The Windsors, a once popular spoof on the abdication crisis, Wally Simpson says to her lover, “But even if you have to give up the throne, can’t you remain Emperor of India?” The real-life Windsors took it hard having to drop the I from the R.I. that followed the monarch’s signature. Kaiser-i-Hind was far-fetched enough, but they wanted an even more exotic replacement. There’s nary a word here about Clement Attlee writing to Jawaharlal Nehru in 1947 suggesting that George VI be rewarded with some title from “India’s heroic age” after he ceased to be emperor. Presumably, Attlee did so with the king’s consent, if not his urging.

Perhaps an element of make-believe is inevitable with someone who “has great authority and no power”. Victoria liked to think of herself as a Stuart until Disraeli helped to reinvent her as a Mughal. The “Defender of the Faith” title is not only absurd but fraudulent. Pope Leo X bestowed it on Henry VIII for loyally defending Roman Catholicism but when Henry broke with Rome, he continued to use it (as his successors have done ever since), presumably to signify defence of anti-papist heresy. Prince Charles has threatened to carry inventiveness a stage further by revising the title to “Defender of Faiths”, including Islam. Luckily, there isn’t a Caliph of Islam any longer to object to trespass.

Nor were there any Windsors on July 17, 1917 to complain that the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha had pinched their name because George V was desperate to live down his German ancestry. But it’s said that in faraway Berlin, his cousin Kaiser Wilhelm heard the news and chuckled that he was off to the theatre to see The Merry Wives of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

SUNANDA K. DATTA-RAY

Published on January 06, 2012

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1111230/jsp/opinion/story_14936354.jsp

Science communication in Assam

Title: Science communication in Assam

Authors: Ankuran Dutta & Anamika Ray

Publisher: DVS Publishers

Number of page: 288

Price: Rs 695

Science for the common man

Science communication is the art of communicating knowledge and developments related to science to the common man in a language that he understands.

The book, Science communication in Assam , gives a fair amount of information on this concept and its history and how well science has been conveyed to general masses using the mass media in ancient and modern times.

However, the researchers have narrowed down their study to only Assam probably because the domain is very wide and it would be difficult to bring in all aspects in 250-odd pages.

The book begins by quoting former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, “In a world dominated by science and technology, science communication and popularisation is of utmost importance, especially for our country where a large population needs to be told about the impact of science and technology in their daily lives.”

The first chapter starts with an introduction of the concept of science communication in general where the authors try to provide an overview of science as a subject and how it fails to reach common masses, as it remains unexploited by the various mediums.

Following the first chapter, the researchers shift their focus to only Assam and anyone seeking some knowledge on the concept of science communication in general will be disappointed.

The second chapter traces the growth of science communication in the region and then moves to Assam in the pre, during and the post Orunodoi -eras, the first Assamese newspaper published in 1846.

The authors also mention KnowHow, the science supplement that The Telegraph publishes.

The book also highlights the status of articles on science and technology during the post-Independence period.

The researchers refer to the sayings of Daka, (Dakar Bachan) in the third chapter. They quote another author, Dinesh Chandra Goswami, who wrote, “The sayings of Daka Purusha who flourished in Assam during the 4 th or the 6 th century very well depicted the practice of science and its acceptance and influence on the society.” The book brings out the various proverbs that are intertwined with Assamese culture. The authors conclude that his sayings are the best examples of science communication in the ancient period which lay emphasis on the common man. Again, this chapter will interest only those who have some idea about the history of Assam or want to learn about it.

After this, the authors take the subsequent chapters to elaborate on the topics that they had provided a preview in the second chapter itself.

They put forth the presence of science-related writings in Assamese literature, media coverage on science in Assam and again another chapter on science fiction in Assamese literature.

The book tends to get repetitive from here on and would interest only those who are associated with media studies, policy makers and scientists, especially those who have special papers on the region or just Assam.

The researches also highlight how folk culture and cartoons, or science toons (term coined by Indian scientist Pradeep Srivastava), could be utilised to popularise science among the masses. In the chapter Science Communication for Tribals, they discuss the indigenous communities of Assam and their cultures and practices, what challenges lies ahead to take science closer to them and the methods like folk performance, games and exhibitions to be used to communicate scientific developments among them.

The book gives an idea on the organisational initiatives both in public and private sectors and the role they play to bring science-based knowledge closer to the masses. Chapters 10 and 11 give a general overview, highlighting the National Council for Science and Technology, Bharat Jan Vigyan Jatha and the Assam-specific groups and institutes but are too lengthy.

Once again the book reverts to Assam in the next chapter, where the authors provide an overview of the lives and works of well- known science communicators of Assam. They include Bijoy Krishna Dev Sarma, Dinesh Chandra Goswami and Khiradha Baruah.

The researchers, both mass communication teachers, give an in-depth account of the status of science communication education, distance courses and a career in this field.

This is a well-researched book, which brings forth a topic that has a long history in the country but is still evolving mainly because of lack of understanding on the effect of science on our lives.

SUMANA ROY

published on January 6, 2012

Poetic Voices on Child Rights

Poetry for tomorrow

Name of the book: Poetic Voices on Child Rights

Edited by: Noel Manuel

Publisher: Dimensions Publishing

Pages: 67

As you sow, so you reap. A society that teaches its future generation to be responsible and sensitive is bound to reap its benefits.

The 4th Northeast Poetry Festival on Child Rights organised by the United Tribal Society this year is a commendable effort towards creating awareness in society — among parents, educators, social workers, public leaders and children themselves — on child rights.

The festival also encourages poetic expressions while making children aware of their rights and that of those around them — to education, nutrition, health & care, survival, development, recreation, name and nationality, expression and information, and protection from exploitation, abuse and neglect. These have been compiled in a book, Poetic Voices on Child Rights.

The maturity of the children as they observe their environment, perceive the plight of underprivileged children and their choice of words as they express themselves is amazing.

They feel the pain of children who toil in places other than school, whose haversacks are filled with garbage instead of books, from whom rainbows and fairy tales have been snatched in lieu of a penny.

They feel the loneliness and helplessness of a childhood lost in dark bylanes and an adult world, the death of dreams under the burden of poverty as frail shoulders take on responsibilities beyond their capacity.

The little poets speak for a child’s right to a decent life full of love, support, opportunities and hope and even of a foetus waiting to be born.

They protest injustices like child trafficking and inequalities of class, opportunities and gender despite every child being born free.

They question the yawning gap between legislation and reality.

They reflect upon the role of a mother and a teacher in a child’s life and ponder upon how we can help deprived children in “our own little ways”.

Adult voices call for providing rights to less privileged children as one would to one’s own. They speak of protection and promotion of children’s right and denounce exploitation and abuse of “god’s precious creations”. They ask parents and teachers to be sensitive to a child’s world.

Indeed, if children can grow up with the sensitivity they express and if adults support the building blocks of society, every child in our country would surely have his/her rights for mere legislation cannot ensure children’s happiness. It lies in others’ feelings and a sense of justice, in the will to take that one step which could bring a smile to a child’s lips and a twinkle to his/her eyes.

Noel Manuel, director of Dimensions — School of Poetry, a project of the United Tribal Society, and editor of Poetic Voices on Child Rights, puts it aptly:

Let our hearts sing for children’s needs

Let our tears water these neglected seeds

For today is ours but tomorrow is theirs

Let us do our bit even if no one cares.

SWATI AGARWAL

Balasaraswati: Her Art and Life

RECOUNTING A RHYTHMIC LIFE

- Anecdotes are central to the history of performance in India

Name of the book: Balasaraswati: Her Art and Life

Writer : By Douglas M. Knight Jr

Publisher: Tranquebar,

Price: Rs 599

Pages: 350

Writing about icons is not easy. One is usually confronted with an immense amount of biographical material that has been self-consciously produced for the public domain. Consequently, there is a repetitive strain in the narratives that celebrate the icon in question. In the case of Bala, the celebrated danseuse of the 20th century, the problem is further compounded as she belonged to a family whose artistic location and achievements tend to fit a particular mode of narration. This emphasizes the very special status of the family she belonged to, the access the family enjoyed to a very specialized repertoire and how, in terms of artistic conception, they tended to mark out a very distinct style that was seen at variance with the more mainstream and standardized conception of classical music and dance that was being articulated and assembled by new consumers and publicists. The narrative has also stressed the relocation of Bala’s family to the United States of America where they enjoyed a very special reception, which enabled her and other family members to transmit what they saw as significant elements of the musical and dancing tradition they were born to but that did not enjoy the same currency in post-1950 India.

To what extent does Douglas Knight’s biography of Bala expand this narrative or refine our understanding of Bala, her life and labour? How does Knight’s intimacy with the family provide us with a more ‘emic’ perspective? How does this augment our appreciation of the sociological changes associated with the art form of Sadr or Bharata Natyam in the 20th century? How did Bala articulate her artistic vocabulary or pedagogic method?

Some of these questions find interesting answers even if these are not explicitly addressed. Part of the strength of the book lies in its rich visual material — photographs that the author has access to and which give us a fascinating glimpse into the life of young Bala and her initial appearances on stage, her friendships and foibles. Knight is an insider researcher and is thus able to make use of anecdotes in a way that gives his work a very special depth. In terms of analysis, however, it does not depart from what is conventional wisdom by now on the social history of music, dance and performance in the 20th century.

What is different about Knight’s treatment is the style of narration that stands out. It reads like a collage of reports and reviews and this is effective in lending a more intimate sense of Bala the dancer and of her anxieties as an individual. Anecdotes are central to this style as they carefully build up an edifice of the dancer’s life in terms of her personal experiences as well as of her training years under remarkable masters. Thus we have, for instance, the story of how Bala worshipped a local deity, the Karumari amman, and of her experiences with mediums and what these engagements meant to her. We also have her recollections of her trainer, Vedantam Lakshminarayana Sastri, who was supposed to have had astounding physical control. “He could sweat on command, weep at will, make his hair stand out, change the colour of his skin. Yet his true genius lay in his enormous variety of improvisational techniques.” Bala, we are told, was like a sponge absorbing everything that was taught. Equally impressive was the way she articulated a conceptual vocabulary of dance and spoke about her notion of fidelity and purity. This was an imagination that eschewed all unnecessary accoutrements of props and costumes. It is tempting to see in this a challenge to the style that her celebrated contemporary, Rukmini Devi Arundale, had put together and which seemed to be at complete odds with the ideas that Bala represented and embodied in her dance. However, it is refreshing to see that Knight does not fall into this kind of polarized representation and simply focuses on how Bala addressed her legacy and presented it at home and abroad.

Bala’s life in America, her association with Wesleyan College, the training she imparted to students and to her daughter, Lakshmi, form the concluding sections of the book. In a way this is part of the fascinating after-life that a particular strain of classical dance and music enjoyed in the US and how this served to provide a more complex layer to the modern history of Indian music and dance that was not merely confined to the imagination of the nation and its publicists.

As a biography, this book is informative and comprehensive. It has excellent illustrations that capture the several nuances of Bala’s life and her social experiences, her aspirations and childlike fancies. It also conveys a sense of intimacy that the author enjoys with his subject without becoming excessively sentimental or adulatory. What is missing, though, is a historiographical context in which Knight might have wished to place his work. Given the recent proliferation of books on performance and performers, it would have helped if he had chosen to reflect on the methodology that he adopted and on how his treatment of an icon like Bala is different from other and similar biographies, or on how and why anecdotes are central to the construction of the history of performance in India.

LAKSHMI SUBRAMANIAN

Published on December 30, 2011

http://www.telegraphindia.com/1111223/jsp/opinion/story_14914970.jsp