THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The spotlight turns a shade vermilion as the dancer enters, resplendent in red and white silk trimmed with gold. For the next 20 minutes, the stage is transformed into the stricken, doomed court of the Kauravas where a hapless Draupadi is betted upon and lost in the game of dice.
The public humiliation of the Pandava queen, the triumphal roar of Dushasana, the helplessness of the five brothers and the Kuru elders flash by as the solitary dancer entices her audience into the magical world of Sattriya, the classical dance of Assam.
Someone who teaches dentistry but practises dance - that’s how Lima Das prefers to describe herself. At the Nishagandhi Festival earlier this week, Das’s admirable dancing skills were on display as she introduced the audience to the changes happening in Sattriya.
“Today Sattriya is coming out of its ritualistic past. The future of the dance lies in making it more palatable to the public, while keeping the traditions,” the doctor from Guwahati for whom dance ‘perfectly blends the body and mind’ told Express.
Sattriya traces its origins to the Vaishnavite monasteries (Sattras) of Assam and the 15th century scholar Sankaradeva. The latter extracted elements from folk arts to create Ankia Naat, a type of one-act dance drama. His disciple Madhavadeva further developed the art. With its emphasis on form, easy grace and the pure thrill of story-telling, Sattriya was recognised as a classical dance by the Sangeet Natak Akademi in 2000.
“Sattriya has a different flavour altogether. In the past, it was centred exclusively on Ram and Krishna, mainly Krishna. But other characters, Draupadi for instance, are finding a place now. The future lies in these new choreographies,” said Das, who, along with her guru Jatin Goswami, 85, is part of this ‘reformation.’
Das’s first piece - a short, captivating episode on Krishna and Kubja, the hunchbacked woman of Mathura - was created by Goswami specially for the Nishagandhi Festival.
The two which followed also were new arrangements; the humiliation of Draupadi in the Kaurava Sabha and Ekalavya, both tales from the Mahabharatha. “The story of Draupadi was extracted from the Assamese version of the epic,” she said.
The daughter of a singer and an ENT surgeon, Lima Das came to Sattriya through Odissi. “My mother (well known singer Mridula Das) wanted me to follow her path. She was also a chemistry professor. To my father, the medical profession was everything.
So I had to be a doctor. But dance was always me. It’s total bliss,” said Das, who is a reader at the Regional Dental College, Guwahati. Sattriya’s Assamese heritage and the tutelage of her Guru prompted her to choose it over Odissi. The decision has never been a cause for regret. “You get this gut feeling that you identify with it better. Sattriya has lots of scope today, and new dancers are coming up,” she said.
Lima Das is married to Dr B K Darang, a dentist who is an artist in his own right. “He’s a sculptor,” she said, gleefully displaying the photograph of a clay bust of a smiling, delicately-featured young woman. “That’s supposed to be me!” she explained. The couple has a son, Adi, aged seven.