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The Hindu
20 hours ago
- General
- The Hindu
How the Kalamkari craft travelled from Srikalahasti to Thanjavur
When people think of Kalamkari, the first words that come to their minds are Srikalahasti or Machilipattanam and not Karuppur or Thanjavur, though the art form has its roots in the latter towns too. 'Kalamkari first found royal patronage in Tamil Nadu in 1540, when Sevappa Nayak, the first Nayaka ruler of Thanjavur , brought a contingent of artists from Karuppur to adorn Thanjavur's palaces and temples ,' says Kalamkari artist Rajmohan, son of National Award-winning Kalamkari artist R. Emperumal. These artists were descendants of migrants from Andhra Pradesh, where Kalamkari originated. Also known as Chitrapadaam ('chitra' meaning picture and 'padaam', tracing), the art form was once used to depict stories from the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. It was later used to create tapestries for palaces, temple hangings, panels for door frames, canopies, umbrella covers, door hangings and tubular hangings and even decorating temple chariots. It eventually evolved into wearable art like sarees and duppattas, and utility items such as bags and bookmarks. Touch of modernity As Rajmohan shows us the works of his ancestors, including a tapestry that is more than 400-years-old, he says, 'I recreate old pieces with a touch of modernity, yet try to keep alive the methodology adopted by my ancestors. For instance, he uses freshly-obtained paints or dyes the same day. The paints do not have a shelf life, as they are derived from nature. I do not use paints or dyes containing preservatives as they do notmatch the depth and richness that naturally-derived ones impart.' The handmade pens or kalams that he uses are crafted from bamboo and tamarind twigs. While bamboo twigs are used as it is, the tamarind ones are burnt and covered in soil overnight before use. Rajmohan's family has been practising kalamkari for more than 800 years now. A BFA graduate, who also studied filmmaking from MGR Film Institute, Rajmohan learnt the kalamkari art from his father. 'There were no formal classes, I learnt by observing him. My son also learns the same way', he says. 'The art form has been slowly fading into obscurity. When royalty was abolished in India, the patronage disappeared, and with it, the livelihood of many artists. They were given land and money, but not the means to learn another trade, and hence languished', he shares. Contibuing the family tradition Not far away from Rajmohan's residence, Lakshmi Narayanan keeps the art alive in a different way. 'This is an endangered art,' says Lakshmi Narayanan, who runs a unit with Kalamkari workers in his two-storeyed home. Narayanan, whose family has been practising the art form that obtained a GI (geographical indication) tag for more than 400 years, explains how the motifs and colours set the Karuppur style of Kalamkari apart from the Srikalahasti style. Narayanan, who began working as a Kalamkari artist at the age of 15, feels that the market remains uncertain even today as handmade items are slowly regaining appreciation from customers. 'We wait for over 20 days for profits to come our way. And if there is a small error, then we lose up to ₹ 17,000 or even ₹20,000 — that is how much a fully-worked kalamkari saree can cost' he shares. 'People who buy it need to understand the volume of work that goes into making a saree or even a dupatta. First, the design is traced using charcoal. It is then treated with a mixture of cow's milk, starched and dried. Then, we fill in the black colour, wash and dry it; the process is repeated for each colour ,' he explains. 'Black is derived from rusted iron, yellow from turmeric, and red from cinnamon,' he shares. A single saree can take 15 to 20 days, depending on the intricacy of the design. 'Sales mostly happen through word-of-mouth,' he says. 'Sometimes, boutiques approach us, but sporadically. We are the only family in this village that makes and sells Kalamkari products commercially,' he says and adds that both his sons (still studying) will eventually take up the craft. Now, with quiet persistence, both Rajmohan and Narayanan ensure that this endangered art is not forgotten. They're not just preserving a technique but a tradition that is passed on through generations.
Time of India
30-05-2025
- Time of India
Diamond theft worth Rs 60L cracked after 45 days, accused nabbed
Rajkot: It had all the makings of a crime thriller — a shadowy figure, buried loot, and a Bollywood-style mask — the Rs 60-lakh diamond theft that had Rajkot police chasing shadows for 45 days was no work of fiction. The accused, Ajay Nayaka, executed the meticulously planned heist using silence and precision, before finally being tracked down through technical surveillance. The burglary was reported on the night of April 10 at a diamond polishing unit located on Kothariya Road. A complaint filed at the Bhaktinagar police station stated that an unidentified person had broken into the unit and escaped with diamonds worth Rs 60 lakh, along with the CCTV cameras and their recordings. During the investigation, the police recovered the stolen diamonds, which had been buried in a pit near a factory in Rajkot. A search of Nayaka's premises also led to the discovery of a face-covering mask, similar to those used in cinematic heists. However, the police stated they have no footage proving that the mask was used during the crime. Addressing the media, Parthrajsinh Gohil, deputy commissioner of police (crime), said, "We identified Nayaka using technical surveillance and by studying his previous crime patterns. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Giao dịch vàng CFDs với sàn môi giới tin cậy IC Markets Tìm hiểu thêm He accessed the diamond locker using cutting tools, and surveillance footage from nearby confirmed his presence in the area on the day of the theft." Sources described Nayaka as a clever and calculated criminal. He reportedly used the central road divider to avoid being captured by building-mounted security cameras, which typically cover only one side of the road. On the day of the theft, he was not carrying any drilling machines or gas cutters to avoid drawing suspicion in case he was recorded on camera. Instead, he had hidden the required tools near the factory a week prior to the break-in. Chirag Jadav, police inspector of the Crime Branch, revealed that Nayaka obtained information about the diamond unit while serving time in Rajkot jail, where he met an inmate familiar with the premises. Although Nayaka intended to sell the stolen diamonds in the market, he was unable to do so due to the aggressive and ongoing police investigation. According to police records, Nayaka has been booked in approximately 20 offences over the last decade, most of which were committed in Rajkot city and district.
Scroll.in
30-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Scroll.in
Precious histories of South Asian dance have remained hidden and ignored
Even the fading sepia tint cannot dull the fire of the image – a dancer air-borne in a leap, like a flying apsara, with improbably long arms and legs stretched in elegant lines and angles. It is a photo that goes back to a time when Sri Lanka was still Ceylon and Vajira Chitrasena was beginning to captivate audiences across the globe. Vajira made a historic contribution to Kandyan dance, once a little-known ritual form of Sri Lanka's central highlands that became a performance art in the 1950s. It was her pioneering effort in building the pedagogy and choreographies of Kandyan dance that crystallised the work begun by her partner, Chitrasena. Across the ocean and past the expanse of India is another dancer of whom we know too little. Indu Mitha, now 96, took Bharatanatyam from Kalakshetra to Lahore in the 1950s and nurtured it through years of turbulence to give it a local flavour. In India itself, there are hundreds of such stories that do not get the attention they deserve. What for example do we know of the Telugu chronicles of a 17th-century Nayaka king's daily life enacted and danced as a means of preserving history in the people's mind? Or the outstanding Bharatanatyam dancers who brought a cinematic version of the style to Tamil and even Hindi movies but were never celebrated enough? These dance histories of South Asia are less known but no less riveting because they hold a wealth of meaning for us today. They foreground for us the raging contemporary debates in dance – on questions of hierarchy, politics, caste, religion, censorship and gender. But to plumb these stories and their meanings, there was nowhere you could go as a dance community, scholar or arts lover. Until 2022, the year when the pandemic turned less deadly. That is when a group of dancers, scholars and arts enthusiasts got together to float an online journal where the cultural, political and historical issues facing South Asian dance could be discussed by regional voices. It was named SADI. Scholar and activist Arshiya Sethi, who has edited the three annual issues of the journal so far, chuckles about its name. SADI expands to a mouthful – South Asian Dance Intersections – but it is also Punjabi for ours, a word that befits the journal. Because what SADI does is amplify the research of scholars and dancers from Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan working in their own regions. Urmimala Sarkar Munsi, a scholar of theatre and performance studies, believes that SADI sets right the skew in writings on South Asian dance, which have tilted disproportionately to West-based scholarship. 'There is a certain neo-colonialism in how foreign journals regulate the writings of non-English speaking scholars,' she said. 'So vernacular scholarship, no matter how good, is less seen. Unless you go to an American university and have the language, courage, networks and encouragement, you are unlikely to find a platform that will publish and publicise your work on dance. We at SADI believe in the need for inclusion of these voices who are less known, do not have that edge, but who have unbelievably rich, rare material. SADI is an important assertion of their right to be heard.' But this pushback, the editorial team maintains, is not just against the monopoly of West-based scholarship, it is also aimed against the hierarchies and privileges entrenched within South Asian cultures and societies. In its pages, for instance, you will find a close look by Sheema Kermani into Pakistan's male Kathak dancers and their struggle with social bias and the disapproval of both the clergy and the state. Elsewhere, there is Kuchipudi dancer Yashoda Thakore's journey of discovery where she stumbles on the bloodlines that link her to Amany, the Devadasi who swept Europe like a storm in 1838 at age 17 and was an ancestor of her guru. In one essay, Lubna Marium explains why a folk form in rural Bangladesh is vilified as 'wicked', and in another, Malaysian Odissi dancer Ramli Ibrahim looks back at how the form found a home in his country over the last four decades. Although SADI is an academic journal – it is hosted on the website of the University of North Carolina, Charlotte – and its essays are blind and peer reviewed, it allows space for varied kinds and styles of writings. There are straight historiographies, interviews, photo and video essays, sharp political analyses and reflective personal essays. And the essayists include dance practitioners, academics as well as those who straddle both worlds. What this diverse harvest of ideas also yields along the way, Sethi says, are unexpected archives and small histories. Erasing divides Exactly what is South Asian dance? Theoretically, it includes all dance forms – classical, folk, popular and ritual – from the South Asian nations of Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bhutan. But so high is the perch occupied by Indian classical dances in the hierarchy, especially by Odissi, Kathak and Bharatanatyam, that they overshadow all else, says Munsi. Indian classical dances acquired the South Asian tag only in the 1980s, argues dance scholar Avanthi Meduri in her essay Labels, Histories, Politics: Indian/South Asian Dance on the Global Stage. The shift happened first in the United Kingdom, where state and institutional support for the Indian forms necessitated a more global profile, she says. There is also the undeniable fact that the UK – and the world at large – is now a free space for the creative intermingling of the South Asian diaspora and its arts. You could, for instance, be a Sri Lankan trained in Bharatanatyam, which informs your contemporary work, or a Pakistani or Bangladeshi dancer trained in Kathak and teaching an Indian student. One of the best illustrations of these linkages is in the work of young Kathak dancer Sushant Gaurav, who specialises in the rarely seen Lahore Lucknow gharana. In an interview tracking the style in SADI, he speaks of his London-based guru Fasih ur Rehman, who was tutored by the Lahore-based Ghulam Hussain Kathak, himself a student of the legendary Achhan Maharaj. Their ultra slow (ati vilambit) and very unusual Kathak with flowing curves and bends has now traversed several cities, nations and continents to come into its own. Another remarkably nuanced essay comes from Odissi dancer and scholar Aadya Kaktikar, who argues that the principles of traditional dance forms can coexist with modern notions of egalitarianism. 'Hard boundaries like these serve neither the art nor the artiste – either that all that is classical is rubbish or that all that is not sacred should be thrown out,' she said. 'Odissi is the form my body knows and gives it joy so I don't want to step out of its grammar. But I also have a cognitive understanding of the history and politics of dance. I have to negotiate my own way past any kind of gatekeeping by tradition or modern thinking.' Kaktikar's arguments hark back to the creative struggles her guru faced in the 1950s, when Odissi was still evolving. The old was dead and the new was still invisible. 'My guru's work is considered canonical in Odissi but as a young man he had to negotiate with the unequal modernity of his time, new audiences and forms of patronage,' she said. SADI and its attempts at 'decolonising dance writing' in a way is an ideal platform for scholars like Kaktikar, especially since it invites both worldviews – of performers and scholars. 'Academic writing on Indian dance is mostly cornered by scholars at American and European universities,' she pointed out. 'But living, working and writing here needs a different kind of tenor. The problem here is that we have a sharp divide between performance and scholarship that you don't see anywhere else. The written word ignores the oral tradition and the reverse too. Dancers have set the discourse around dance in India but they never talk of its troubled history; and scholars have to initiate any and all critical discourse.' SADI, in that sense, is a fledgling attempt at erasing these divides. Interestingly, a part of the effort is mentorship of writers who may not have the necessary academic tools or language. 'We are not looking at papers with a regulatory mechanism or that 'I can destroy you' approach,' said Munsi. 'If you need help, we are here to offer it.'
