In a four-storey building in south Delhi, there is an artiste on every floor. Each of them has his or her ‘territory’, individual practice rooms with presiding deities and different peak hours of introspection and creativity. But there is also a coming together for creative exploration, experimentation, and a shared life of the arts. Living together in the same space works, not because they are family, but because they are a family of artistes.
This is the home of Kathak gurus Vaswati Misra and her elder sister Saswati Sen, who famously danced the kathak before Amjad Khan’s Wajed Ali Shah in Satyajit Ray’s Shatranj ke Khilari. Vaswati and her husband, Pandit Krishan Mohan Misra, son of Shambhu Maharaj, who brought Kathak to Delhi, and their daughter and son-in-law occupy two floors. Saswati’s space is connected to her sister’s floor by a beautiful wooden staircase, which starts from a cosy sit-in area separated from her living room by an open cabinet on which sit rows of Ganeshas.
The Ganesha idol –the right patron saint for an artiste’s home –can, in fact, be seen all over the house, in various moods and materials. “Ganesha is a dancer and he is the player of the pakhawaj,” reminds Vaswati, as one’s eyes moves from Ganeshas over and above console tables and on Rajasthani inlay-work side-tables to Ganeshas as wall decorations, a marble-turbaned Ganesha, and finally a baby Ganesha in black stone that sits hugging a shivalinga before a patch of green on the terrace before which we pause.
“It is one of my favourite spots in the house to just be, to think, or when I am working on a composition,” says Vaswati, as she and her husband—he is also the first cousin of Birju Maharaj—accompany us to the terrace. Early mornings are spent here with birdsong in the company of squirrels.
By 9.30 am, the day’s first tinkling of the ghungroos is heard in the house. Vaswati begins her day’s dance practice on the wooden floor in the basement. In an hour or two, her daughter Ipshita joins her—her soles hitting the floor with a steady thrum.
Today, as she practises, a nagma plays in the background. She begins her teen-taal riyaaz with a time cycle of 16 beats and slowly builds up her footwork in a crescendo of sound, which is somehow miraculously contained in that one corner of the basement where she dances. Today, there is no other surround sound. Otherwise, the basement functions as a rehearsal room, with Vaswati’s students trooping in and out of it. When productions are on, rehearsals here last until 10 in the night. Work and family life unfold in the same time and space; this may be a family home, but it also functions as a co-working space shared by many.
At the far end of the basement is a baithak space—when a baithak is in session, a black curtain rings it, to separate it from the line of almirahs that face the other end of the wall. Each part of the house is, in fact, in the service of dance; most objects and collectibles are dance-related. Like the masks got from China, where the Misras went for a performance, or the miniature rabab from Morocco. Some washrooms have been turned into locker rooms for costumes.
There is also a big walk-in closet for stage costumes, ornaments and props on the ground floor. From zari and brocade skirts to be worn by Radha or for Krishna-vandana to a dhoti-cum-lehenga, which was worn for a programme in which Vaswati danced to a Harivanshrai Bachchan’s poem, and white chikan-organza costumes worn for a Parvathy Baul co-production—all hang here.
All around the basement are also portraits of Shambhu Maharaj and Birju Maharaj, no less a god in this household, holding their own with the Durga busts, ubiquitous in most Bengali homes. The mixed cultural heritage of this home is also evident in its other spaces.
On the walls of son-in-law Pritam Ghosal’s music room—a sarod player, he is a disciple of sarod maestro Amjad Ali Khan, and a member of the Sufi quartet Chaar Yaar— are framed portraits of various Hindustani-classical doyens, dead and living, some of whom are relatives such as the late vocalist Pandit Rajan Mishra.
On the wall, Ghosal points to a framed portrait with a hand-written note in Hindi—Birju Maharaj’s affectionate blessings in words just before he and Ipshita were to marry. Ghosal, too, has a pooja space in this room. Other than the sarods in their cases and a spare bed, it is a bare room, but it does look out into a verandah.
“You need to feel the space, catch the sur (melody) and layay (rhythm) from the air, as our gurus would say. The work space should, anyway, be an empty space, so that you can create work here and do your riyaaz. The riyaaz is the main thing, performances come much later,” he says. “The mandir is also here but it’s not just about God, but dedication, to catch the energy of something ephemeral…you walk into a room and your gurus are around you, it is to these gods, too, that you surrender and draw your force from. And the room then becomes a centre of energy, for creation, for meditation."