Paras Ra­moutar

Chi­tra, a dance dra­ma based on No­bel Lau­re­ate, In­di­an lit­er­ary icon, Ra­bindranath Tagore's po­em, cap­ti­vat­ed na­tion­al at­ten­tion at three show­ings in T&T-at Daa­ga Hall, Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, last Sun­day, the Di­vali Na­gar, Ch­agua­nas, on Tues­day, and at Na­pa on Wednes­day night.These shows were mas­ter­ly ex­e­cut­ed and left al­most every­one in awe.

The 11-mem­ber Ma­nipuri Dance Group led by very renowned and cre­ative artiste Pri­ti Pa­tel was spon­sored by the In­di­an Coun­cil for Cul­tur­al Re­la­tions, the Ma­hat­ma Gand­hi Cen­tre for Cul­tur­al Co-op­er­a­tion and the In­di­an High Com­mis­sion.The show was held in Trinidad to mark the 150th birth an­niver­sary of Tagore.

Ma­nipuri is one of the an­cient dance forms, which dates back even be­fore 33AD; it is pure­ly re­li­gious and its aim is to reignite spir­i­tu­al­i­ty in mankind. One can de­duce that the dra­ma/dance is a medi­um of wor­ship and en­joy­ment, a door to the di­vine and for all so­cial and cul­tur­al ac­tiv­i­ties.From the re­li­gious point of view and from the artis­tic an­gle and vi­sion, the Ma­nipuri clas­si­cal form of dance is said to be one of the most mod­est, soft­est and mildest, but al­so the most mean­ing­ful dances of the world.

Di­rec­tor and chore­o­g­ra­ph­er, Pri­ti Pa­tel, in her full glo­ry and de­vo­tion and ded­i­ca­tion not on­ly ex­celled in this form of dance-es­pe­cial­ly the Vaish­navite Ras Leela form of the Ma­nipuri Dance tra­di­tion-but through her rig­or­ous train­ing she al­so mas­tered the mar­tial art, Thang-Ta.Pa­tel al­so demon­strat­ed her unique dance form, Lai Haro­ba, which is a rit­u­al­is­tic form as well.

A ma­jor fea­ture of her pre­sen­ta­tion was the move­ment ther­a­py for chil­dren suf­fer­ing from cere­bral pal­sy. She has de­vel­oped this form where spe­cial chil­dren with mo­tor co-or­di­na­tion dis­or­der are taught move­ment ther­a­py through the medi­um of Ma­nipuri dance. This in­ter­ven­tion is high­ly com­mend­able. It has two shoots-spir­i­tu­al en­ter­tain­ment and med­ical sup­port-said on­ly to be found in dances from In­dia.

In­di­an High Com­mis­sion­er Shri Malay Mishra said the genre of the Ma­nipuri dance was rep­re­sen­ta­tive of how the Princess of Ma­nipur fell in love with Ar­ju­na. But Pa­tel rein­ter­pret­ed its nu­ances and linked it with a thou­sand silent ques­tions that still arise in the heart of every woman the world over.With­in re­cent times, the In­di­an High Com­mis­sion has been ex­pos­ing the great In­di­an cul­ture, re­flect­ing on both the old and the new In­dia to Trinidad and To­ba­go. They are all packed with wis­dom, spir­i­tu­al­i­ty, knowl­edge and show­cas­es re­li­gious as­pects of the In­di­an sub­con­ti­nent.

Chi­tra con­tin­ues to be one of Tagore's leg­endary works in the field of po­et­ry, dra­ma and In­dol­o­gy. It was a very fit­ting mo­ment for the peo­ple of this coun­try, with over 44 per cent com­pris­ing the In­di­an Di­as­po­ra to view such a splen­did por­tray­al of a great philoso­pher, thinker, hu­man­i­tar­i­an and his­to­ri­an.Chi­tra in­ter­spersed with re­li­gion, phi­los­o­phy, lit­er­a­ture, gov­er­nance, so­ci­ol­o­gy and cre­ativ­i­ty sure­ly taught all its pa­trons lessons in life and liv­ing.It al­so show­cased In­dia's rich his­to­ry on sev­er­al counts of hu­man ex­is­tence.