Artists pay tribute to Pulwama Asian Age April 8, (original) (raw)

2019, Asian Age newspaper and Deccan Chronicle

"Yes, yes, yes!" was the immediate response of dozens of visual and classical performing artists to Shovana Narayan's request for participation in the recent Tribute to Pulwama Martyrs at the India International Centre, New Delhi. We have all shared the grief over the attack on so many dedicated defenders of Indian democracy, but it was Shovana, retired from a brilliant IAS career and fortunately not retired from a brilliant performance career, who brought us all together to express our solidarity through our arts. Row upon row of uniformed CRPF personnel along with their DG, other administration and families were present for an emotional evening of love, tears, compassion and solidarity. The tribute was planned out with the collaboration of the multi-talented visual artist, Naresh Kapuria, also known for his half century of dedication to helping others including a legendary fundraising benefit by a panorama of artists for Kargil families. The vision for the evening began with every dancer, vocalist and speaker signing a large canvas in the lobby which was later presented to the DG CRPF, Rajeev Rai Bhatnagar, on stage. Shovana wove a tapestry of poetry through the warp and weft of the evening connecting each brief presentation to the next. Drawing on ancient and modern sources, from sutras to Helen Keller, Gandhi, Wordsworth and Robert Louis Stevenson, she gently embraced our shared loss as with the Sufi “When the heart grieves over what is has lost, the spirit rejoices over what it has left.” The balance of dance, music and spoken word tributes began with heartfelt words from the IIC Director, KN Shrivastava. This was followed by a moving vocal performance by Dr. Shanno Khurana introduced by Rani Chhabra. The incredibly elegant Shanno-ji at the age of 95 established the aura of the evening. Other musical tributes were offered in the deep, stirring tones of Madhup Mudgal and Vidya Shah’s lyrical tenor. The dancers had been asked to present 3-4 minutes of abhinaya without costume and bring recorded music. Music was handed over to Shovana’s student liason coordinators, Komal and Mrinalini, with light and sound coordination by Nitin Jain. It was incredible to see the seamless technical transitions handled without a single glitch! No mix ups, restarts, or dropped levels; mics for musicians and speakers were all in the right place and on at the right time, lights did the needful and all you consider that this involved more than 30 separate light and sound occasions in one presentation it was awesome. Sonal Mansingh rushed from her India Gate Odisha Parb performance to join us but arrived after the well orchestrated event had concluded because everything had gone like clockwork without the usual hiccups and delays that would have made such a large group presentation drag on interminably. This one was crisp and effective and the energy was palpable as artistic voices shifted flawlessly. The dance presentations were powerful and touching, elegant and thought provoking, by nationally honored dancers Bharati Shivaji, Geeta Chandran, Prathibha Prahlad, Madhavi Mudgal, Ranjana Gauhar, Dr Saroja Vaidyanathan, Prerana Srimali plus myself. I was particularly moved by Dr Saroja Vaidyanathan’s abhinaya of a soldier’s mother, wife, sister and brother interacting with him before departure to service and each one’s reaction to news of his death. Rashmi Vaishalingam shared the words of Raja and Radha Reddy who were out of Delhi, Sadhana Shrivastava shared poetry of Nalini Kamlini and Rama Pandey blew us away with a powerful reading of her own poetry of praise and reflections on society. The always graceful actress, Sushma Seth, shared her feelings in a few words of poetry while Sunit Tandon brought the artist tribute to a fitting end with a well chosen poetic bouquet. Besides poetry, there were excellent spoken tributes by Alka Raghuvanshi , Lavlin Tandon reading inspirational letters from the battlefront and from Aruna Vasudeva, Ashish Khokar shared his pride in a family history of a grandfather and aunts serving as army doctors while Geetanjali Lal recalled her college days in Kashmir during the 1965 war with Pakistan. This heartfelt tribute was a much appreciated opportunity by the community of artists to share our feelings as part of civil society to a representative selection of our armed forces, those who “give their today for our tomorrow”.