Little known facts on barrister-dancer Nataraj Vashi and his fascinating career

After my article on Yog Sundar, the prince who turned into a dancer, I received several emails to write about a few more dancers from Gujarat and some who were contemporaries of Uday Shankar, Ram Gopal and Yog Sundar. His daughter, dancer Papiha Desai, asked me to write on Nataraj Vashi, who her father had worked with and knew him for his innovations, large-scale production and making a name in the United States by 1946.

I looked up my dance collection and did find only two photos as the rest of the brochures and programme notes and photos are somewhere in my collection in Baroda. However, I do appreciate Papiha and other friends’ suggestions to write on the life and career of Nataraj Vashi and his dancer/architect wife Parveena.

The venue is: The Belasco Theatre, 115, West 44th street, East of Broadway, New York City. The date: May 21, 1946, Monday night. The curtain rises and the audience is transported to the mythological world of Hindu Gods and Goddesses.

Opening with the Mangalacharan, dancers Praveena, Minal and Lakshmi, in colourful costumes and attractive hairdos, a la one sees in Ajanta frescoes, offered flowers to the God presiding over the stage. They offered salutations to the gods, placed the instruments on the stage, bowed to them and the audience asking permission to perform.

Then enters Indra, the Lord of heaven, asking his charioteer Matali to summon his son Arjuna to get ready and fight with the demon Kalakeya, bringing along with him the divine weapon Pashupatastra he had won after conducting the penance of Lord Shiva. A violent fight took place between Kalakeya the demon and Arjuna the warrior, resulting in the defeat of Kalakeya and Arjuna returning victorious, establishing peace in heaven.

The scene changes. Enter two beautiful maidens. They enter dancing gracefully and open the boxes of their makeup. Looking into the mirror, they decorate themselves with hair ornaments, apply black to the eye, place red dot kumkum on the forehead, and so on looking again and again into the mirror overcome by their own beauty. There is neither a mirror, nor any ornaments. But the sheer acting won over the audience which burst forth into loud clapping.

Next enters a Gandharva, a divine musician, and moves happily in heaven. But his time is over and he is summoned back.

Then appear on the backstage paintings of large sculptures of Trimurti, the three-headed God Shiva from the 6th century caves of Elephanta. The dancer appears on the stage with a damaru, a drum, and plays it with great energy. The dance of Shiva is performed by the principal dancer Nataraj Vashi. He sits in meditation. Kamadeva, the lord of love, Cupid arrives and shoots a flowery arrow to draw his attention to the beautiful maiden Parvati who is doing penance. Opening his third eye, Lord Shiva turns Kamadeva into ashes. Seeing this, his wife Rati cries and begs of Lord Shiva to bring him back to life. Lord Shiva blesses her, telling her that Kamadeva will be in every human being minus the physical body, “atanau”, and will be always the God of love.

I was browsing through the colourful programme book Nataraj Vashi gave me to have a look at, telling me to wait for a while when he will be done with his client for legal advice!

I had gone to interview Nataraj Vashi in his well appointed flat at Malabar Hill. A close friend of Susheel Jhaveri and Nayana Jhaveri, my friends, Nataraj Vashi had agreed to talk about his fascinating career with me.

Born on August 23 in 1914, in a village named Dhamadachha on the banks of the Ambika river near Amalsad in south Gujarat, in a Brahmin family, Natavar, addressed with affection as Natu, had shown his talents for dancing and acting. His father was in the business of lending money. He moved to Mumbai where Natu studied in the Fellowship School where he took part in folk dancing, Garbi, Dandiya raas, and also played various roles in drama.

During that period, Kathakali Guru Madhavan Nair was running classes in Kathakali in Mumbai. Natavar started studying Kathakali, underwent rigorous oil massages to build his body. Simultaneously, he started studying Manipuri from Nabhakumar Sinha, who was also in Mumbai teaching Manipuri. This was the time when Uday Shankar and Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore’s influences were felt everywhere in the art world. The 1930s and 1940s were the years when the entire nation was all agog with the spirit of nationalism and wanted to assert its own Indian identity. Young artists like Yog Sundar, Kumar Jayakar, Yogendra Desai, Mahendra and Govardhan Panchal were all beaten by the bug of dancing. Shantiniketan was one of the destinations where they were drawn like magnets. Natavar joined Shantiniketan during the summer vacation and fortunate as he was, Tagore was there during the summer vacation. Meeting him was a blessing. Nataraj had known about the dances of Java and Bali and knew that Tagore had close contacts with artistes from those regions

He expressed his desire to study dance in Java and Bali. Tagore gave him recommendation letters and armed with those letters Natavar went to Java and Bali and studied those dances. He travelled a lot and after returning to India, having known and seen Uday Shankar’s shadow play Ramlila, he planned to choreograph the Mahabharata as a shadow play, enrolling Yog Sundar and several other young artists. As a young schoolgoing student, I remember huge crowds at Madhav Baug near C.P. Tank where Nataraj had mounted the grand spectacle.

With unprecedented success, he planned to stage it for the labour class at Worli and it was received with great enthusiasm.

Nataraj had already formed the Nataraj Vashi and Dancers troupe for dance. Among his associates was a charming young girl Praveena who was also an architect. Both of them used to perform together duets and also group dances selecting themes from mythology. Of course, they all were influenced by Uday Shankar and his creations.

It so happened that Praveena received a scholarship to study architecture further in the US. Nataraj also got admission in Chicago University. They had already got music on tape and packed lots of costumes and went to America. From 1937 till 1947, after spending a decade in the US travelling across several cities, Natavar reached San Francisco. Nataraj gave master classes in dance and when he visited North Carolina he started learning about the “Mechanics of Dance”, which was like an abstract international form. It depended upon the theory of kinesthetics, a whole science of the use of the body. Natavar wanted to develop it further for its use of the body to translate ideas into dance. Leading American choreographers like Merce Cunningham used to interact with him. It was the time when La Meri, Catherine Litz, Buckminster Fuller, known for his “Geosodic Dome”, Hanya Holmes, from among the painters Jackson Pollock, sculptor Isamu Noguchi and photographer Herbert Matter were all active on the scene pushing the borders of their chosen idioms.

Natavar received $500 from the Dr Albert Barns Foundation for his lecture and wanted to develop choreology as per Labanotation for Indian dance.

The Maharaja of Baroda was much impressed by Nataraj and Praveena’s dances and efforts to showcase Indian dances in the US — he gave a generous grant to them to present their dances at The Belasco Theatre. The performance which I have referred to in the beginning, above.

Both Natavar and Praveena had become well known Indian dancers. By the time India became Independent, they returned to India. Praveena devoted her time to the practice of architecture. Also, they followed their own careers, parting company. Natavar had already his PhD, and on returning he further studied law and became a barrister and started practice at an advanced age in the Bombay High Court. It may sound strange, but his interests were wide besides dance. He had forecast that near Lothal, there is a possibility of finding the remains of an ancient civilisation parallel to Mohenjo Daro. And when it came true, he was thrilled. He had a deep interest in linguistics as well.

With Nayana Jhaveri I had come across a few clippings of the Dancers’ Guild which Natavar had started several years ago. Natavar had seen my enthusiasm for dance and was familiar with my writings on dance in Gujarati in the Kumar art magazine. I used to pester him to write his experiences and memoirs for future generations. Browsing through his vast collection of programme books, his writings and photographs, I used to urge him to write.

It is a pity that he did not and left it to as he said, the “young generation”. My regret is that even today we do not have any agency which undertakes this work. Sporadic individual efforts are not enough. What one sees abroad at the New York Public Library at its Dance Collection and elsewhere, similar efforts are not undertaken. The Sangeet Natak Akademi is a treasure trove with several interviews and recordings which can undertake an initiative of disseminating such information. The Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) has acquired Mohan Khokar’s dance collection and one looks forward to it being a major source for such information. One hopes such measures will take place soon before we lose lot of material for dance history.

The writer is an eminent dance historian