The word “interview,” as journalists use it, is not understood in quite the same way by seekers. For them, interview — or sākṣātkāra — signifies the direct experiential realization of the essential nature of the (supreme) truth, as its witness. The poet says that such experience occurs in meditation. I have also heard of another way: through the instruction of one who has already had that direct encounter. The Indian method of receiving such instruction is the Upaniṣadic way — to situate oneself before the Guru in the disposition of a supplicant.
In journalism, both the question and the answer tend toward specificity, driven by the desire for precise information. In contrast, perhaps shaped by Indian disposition, my questions are many. I am not a journalist, but a śiśikṣu — a learner-disciple. I sit in the presence of my Ācārya, Mahāmahopādhyāya Śrī Piyal Bhattacharya — recipient of the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award and Tagore National Scholar — in the hope that a witnessing of Nāṭya may unfold, at Chidākāśa.
The term “Mārga Nāṭya,” in reference to Bharata’s Nāṭya, had not been used by anyone before you. Why this particular term — “Mārga Nāṭya”?
There are two words — path and mārga. In Sanskrit, when we use the word patha or panthā, it refers to a definite route leading to a definite destination. But the word mārga carries within it the sense of mṛgyate — to be sought, to be pursued. Consider, for instance, a hunt. When someone goes hunting, the route of the hunt is never fixed. The objective may be definite — say, a deer or a boar — but the direction in which it will run, the moment it will leap, cannot be predetermined. In such a case, the goal is fixed, but the path is indeterminate. The hunter’s path is formed in the very act of pursuit. This path that comes into being through movement itself — that is mārga.
My own process is likewise not predetermined. It continues to take shape gradually, and perhaps it will go on doing so until the moment of my death. Even thereafter, if someone wishes to follow this lineage or this exploration of mine, this mārga will never become fixed in the manner of a path. Each one will have to create one’s own mārga. This is its essential implication.
My mārga has never confined my exploration within a predetermined route. When I began this work, in 1997, I was in a state of immaturity and incompleteness. Upon witnessing the dance of Padma Subrahmanyam in 1997, that dance itself emerged as the objective revealed in the course of my hunt. But in pursuing that objective, I have arrived somewhere today — just as, a few years ago, I had arrived somewhere else. Just as I did not know then where I would arrive today, I do not know now where I will arrive next. I do not know where I will stand even at the moment of my death.
This search, this pursuit, is therefore an unbroken play — what, in academic language, you might call a process.
In attempting to construct a method through which we may see, understand, and internalize the performing arts, I have moved forward keeping the Nāṭyaśāstra as the objective before me. Yet this objective will not be the same for everyone. What that objective is, and how it manifests, depends upon the individual. However, the essential meaning of the term itself remains unchanged.
In post-Independence India, a movement known as the “Theatre of Roots” emerged. Broadly speaking, its aim was to rediscover our roots through theatre. Does Mārga Nāṭya follow that same path, or is its objective different?
My practice is neither separate from it, nor is it identical to it. In the Theatre of Roots movement, we suddenly turned toward the “root.” We came to know the root, and began making theatre using the materials of the root. But I ask a simple question: do we drink milk directly from the cow’s udder? No. We purify it; we subject it to a process. Why then should we apply the root to theatre in its unrefined state?
Bharata teaches us a method — the method of refinement. This method is called bhāvānukīrtana. The root shapes our consciousness; it forms our faculty of understanding — an understanding that can never arise merely from reading books. Now, the root is always bound to a specific space and time. By engaging with the root of a particular space-time, learning from it, and yet transcending that space-time, Bharata shows us the method through the principle of bhāvānukīrtana.
I too learned Kathakali by going directly to the root, learning within the guru-paramparā. And there I realized that Kottarakkara Tampurān, when creating Kathakali, never had to ask himself how he might become “rooted.” The very idea that one must consciously strive to be rooted appears to me, therefore, somewhat imposed.
Consider this: it is conventionally said that Kathakali was formed through various elements drawn from Kalaripayattu or Krishnanattam. But who determined this exchange, and when? Did that process arise from an anxiety about becoming rooted? Certainly not. In our tradition, whenever a new art form emerged, whenever it was nurtured and its principles or methods established, the authority of Bharata-sūtra was invoked.
This Bharata-sūtra is the utterance of a seer. And Veda — by Veda I do not mean the four Vedas alone — it is, in essence, the universal consciousness of the performing arts.
Therefore, the first task is to connect one’s intellect to such universal consciousness. For that connection, one requires a sūtra — and that sūtra is given by Bharata Muni. When is it given? When there is trust in Bharata. If one mistakes muni-consciousness for merely human consciousness, such trust cannot arise. I did not face that difficulty, because I learned within the guru-paramparā. I had trust in the Guru. Through that guru-consciousness, I was able to refine the theoretical dimension of what may be called the “root movement.”
My process, therefore, begins with the purification of the nābhi — the core. This process of nābhi-śuddhi exists in Kalaripayattu, from where it enters Kathakali; it is present also in Kūṭiyāṭṭam. In Kalaripayattu, this core is cultivated for combat; in Kathakali, it is adapted for performance; in Kūṭiyāṭṭam, it is further transformed according to its own performative requirements.
Can it then be said that my theatre is not rooted? Certainly it is. Therefore, to claim that my theatre, my Nāṭya, is not part of the “Theatre of Roots” would be untrue. The real question is this: how is the root refined?
I was born into a family, and the root of that family lives within me. Yet I do not behave exactly like every other member of my family. Why? Because I possess my own consciousness. That consciousness does not reject the family — it develops it. The root, too, must be developed in this way. It is not enough merely to use it; it must be carried through consciousness and transformed. And in Nāṭya, this very method is bhāvānukīrtana.
Could you elaborate further on bhāvānukīrtana?
Even if one explains bhāvānukīrtana, it can never be fully understood. For bhāva is sattva — the very essence of truth. Bhāvānukīrtana means the re-articulation of that bhāva; in English, one may call it “retelling.” But before that, two things are necessary: first, deep review; and then, according to that review, the re-manifestation of the art, both inwardly and outwardly.
If I were to express it in academic terms, one must first review, and then redo.
Thus, when I perform Kathakali as a Bengali, it becomes my re-doing of Kathakali. Someone whose mother tongue is Malayalam, who is born into that consciousness, inhabits a sattva into which I cannot dissolve myself entirely. As Bengalis, we are contemplative by temperament. We question; we seek answers. Within our cultural inheritance flows the legacy of Abanindranath Tagore and Satyajit Ray. It was through that sattva that I was able, at a certain point, to redo Kathakali; and perhaps it is for this reason that I am able to do this work today.
This is the method and practice of bhāvānukīrtana. I do not believe it can be understood through intellectual inquiry alone. Another reason may be that my method is practice-based. Only through the review of an art and its re-manifestation can its sattva be re-articulated. It is an extremely rigorous epistemic method. The moment one attempts to explain it, complexity arises. But through practice, it becomes simple.
For this reason, in our tradition, certain sūtras have been left behind to avoid such complexity. These sūtras can be realized only through practice — never through explanation.
Anyone who has experienced your Nāṭya knows that it is profoundly new — both in its subject and in its presentation. In dance, music, text, ornamentation, gesture, voice, props, and stage construction — what we call scenography — in almost every aspect, it does not resemble any precedent, not only in West Bengal but in India as a whole. Yet, newness does not necessarily mean that it is merely contemporary.
I do nothing new. As I said, I review the old, and then I redo it. I do not call that new.
Take this stage that you see before you. Is it new? No, it is not. If you visit a Namghar, you will see something similar there. But when I went to the Namghar, questions arose within me: why is it like this? I did not go and ask anyone there. I asked myself. If I had asked someone from that tradition, they would have given me a theoretical answer based on their lineage. That would not have been directly applicable to my Nāṭya. It would have needed to be refined before it could become useful.
Then I saw the Śrīyantra. I observed the structure of pyramids — in Egypt, in Mayan civilization. I realized that this was essentially an energy grid. If I create such an energetic field and speak within it, consciousness spreads very rapidly.
Now, why was this stage constructed in this way? This Nāṭya — Saugandhikāharaṇam — involves two characters: Hanuman and Bhima. One belongs to the Tretā Yuga, the other to the Dvāpara Yuga. It is a dialogue between two beings of different epochs. But we ourselves do not live across epochs; we live and end within a single span of time. We do not experience transitions between yugas. Therefore, the experience of epochal transition does not naturally arise within our awareness.
One who can perceive such transitions must exist beyond the spatial and temporal limits of our pañca-bhūta existence. To evoke that transcendence, we constructed this pyramid-like stage in five layers — each layer with its own colour. Seated beyond these layers of manifestation is Hanuman — a consciousness belonging to an earlier epoch, one that we neither fully accept nor fully understand.
Everything we do is oriented toward imagined futures. Our connection with the past exists either as emotional attachment or as neglect. It is not natural for human beings to live by directly assimilating the lessons of the past. How, then, could I express this multidimensional movement of time on stage?
Conventionally, one might suggest using the mattavarani. But instead of using the mattavarani, we thought differently. Yet this cannot be called new.
Within the Indian knowledge tradition — and by “Indian knowledge,” I do not mean Vedānta alone, but a much wider field of experience — such things cannot be fully explained in language. I simply revisited that field. As I said, I reviewed it. Through that revisiting, the question I carried within me found its answer. I then filtered that answer and applied it within Nāṭya.
Therefore, there is nothing new in my Nāṭya. Everything is refined from the old.
One person prefers perfume; another prefers attar. In this way, the adhikāra — the capacity of the receiver — differs.
No Indian śāstrakāra or artist has ever claimed to create something new. They have sought to realize universal consciousness, and through logical means, refinement, and internalization, they have re-articulated it — or, if you prefer, retold it.
This is where my astonishment lies: I had never imagined that the Yakṣa’s longing in separation and the solitude of human beings during the lockdown could be strung together on the same thread. Even after reading so many classics, this had never occurred to me.
Such connections arise only when one’s inner orientation is different. I do not possess a Western orientation. From childhood, I grew up within Indian narratives, stories, and śāstra. As a result, I do not consciously seek to connect these things — they connect themselves.
If I encounter an old friend on the street and fail to recognize him, he will recognize me and call out, “Piyal… don’t you recognize me?” In just that way, during the lockdown, my past readings recognized that moment of time and called out from within me: “Do you now understand what the Yakṣa’s longing in separation truly was?”
- TBC
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